The Hetalian Job
by Rainy Meadows
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple mission: go in, slay the prospective kishin, come straight back out. But when Death the Kid encounters an asymmetrical pasta-loving coward, his life becomes anything but simple. Rated T for violence, swearing and dark themes, but not enough to constitute an M. Image by Skim-ART. First in the SoulHeta series.
1. A Walk in the Black Forest

Speed. That was the key. He needed to pick up more speed if he was ever to succeed in this dangerous mission. His feet moved so fast and so lightly over the ground that he was barely even touching it.

Some distance away there was a loud and masculine sounding scream of horror and pain, and Death the Kid skidded to a halt on the loose dirt road.

"Shit!" he swore quietly. "It found another?"

Following the road proving too time-consuming, Kid opted instead for a short cut through the tightly packed trees which surrounded the roughly cut track. He began to regret it soon afterwards: the sound of twigs and undergrowth under his rapidly moving feet was nothing short of deafening.

"Kid, why can't we just fly over the trees?" asked Liz from under the firm grip of his fingers.

"Don't you know anything?" asked Kid. "Or did you just not listen to the briefing?"

In the mental world of her weapon form, Liz nervously twirled her hair around a finger.

"Sorry, Kid," said Patty, "I think Liz has gone bye-bye."

"This is supposed to be a stealth mission," Kid explained. "As far as I know, soaring through the sky on a flying skateboard is the absolute _opposite_ of stealth. We have to sneak up on this creature and take it out before it knows what's going on!"

"I don't see why we have to chase that thing!" Liz moaned. "Were you even looking properly, or was I the only one who noticed that even its CLAWS had claws?"

"I certainly did," Kid replied. "Four claws on one arm and only three on the other? That monster should be destroyed for the mere crime of being so incomprehensibly _hideous_."

He stopped talking abruptly and froze when he emerged from the trees onto another dirt road, faced with his quarry's latest victim.

It was a man, probably in his mid-to-late twenties, lying barely conscious on his stomach. His blonde hair, which was once probably slicked back, was now spread untidily over the ground, and his deep blue eyes were flickering around uncontrollably. All of this most likely had something to do with the four tremendous gashes which had been carved into his back, shredding his otherwise immaculate deep green uniform which indicated a military rank of some kind.

Kid knelt down beside him and gently touched the wounds.

"They're not very deep," he commented, and to the man he said "Don't worry, you're going to be fine. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

He had to ask: this was central Europe after all. Who knows what language (or possibly languages) this man spoke?

But he nodded, albeit fearfully. He understood English.

"Take this," said Kid, and he placed a small skull under the man's motionless hand. "It's a locator. Hold onto it and DWMA medics will find you within the hour. Again, you're going to be fine."

There was another scream – this one considerably shriller than the last – and it came from within the trees on the other side of the road. Without missing a beat Kid sprang to his feet and into the forest.

"As I was saying," he continued as he ran, "all I know is that there's a person who has been collecting human souls and if they get even one more, they'll awaken into a kishin. They're too far gone to even be considered anywhere near human anymore, so Father couldn't risk sending a student. It had to be me. I'm the only one strong enough."

He ran onwards towards the source of the scream.

As time passed and more distance was covered, the trees began to grow dense and dark. Silence became ever more prevalent as the trio drew close to the parts of the forest where even the wildlife dared not venture. Kid tightened his grip on the two guns he held, taking great care not to lose his grip even the slightest lest one of them become lost to the blackness.

Patty cooed appreciatively.

"Sis, look!" she cried.

"Look at what?" asked Liz. "There's nothing to look at. It's too dark!"

"Exactly!" Patty stated happily. "It's so dark I can't even see Kid's hand anymore!"

Liz moaned fearfully.

"I don't like this," she said. "It's the middle of the day, so why does it have to be so dark? That monster could be hiding right behind us and we'd never even know until it bit our heads off!"

From somewhere ahead there came another shrill scream, this one considerably closer and louder than the last.

"I don't think so," Kid replied.

Rather than continuing along the forest floor, the young reaper opted instead for jumping into the trees and leaping from branch to branch, taking a quieter and more incognito route through the canopy.

'I should have done it like this earlier,' he chided himself. 'Back when the trees first began to get dense. What kind of idiot can't even pursue a potential kishin properly?'

And then, all of a sudden, he saw it.

It had somehow still retained a somewhat human appearance. Its pale skinned, feminine-looking face seemed horribly out of place on the unbalanced mass of black grime and torn greenery, presumably gathered from the forest floor. Its mouth was pulled back in a nightmarish grin, showing far more gum than razor-sharp tooth, and its ruby-coloured eyes were gleaming with malice.

It loomed over its latest victim, who was curled in a foetal position in its shadow with blood pouring from massive wounds in his or her left arm.

And the monster was raising a claw to finish the job.

"Liz, Patty, you know what we have to do," Kid murmured to his two partners.

It took a moment for the two to catch on, but when they did they were deeply disturbed.

"Are you _crazy?!_" Liz demanded. "We're still not sure how powerful that is yet! You could kill yourself, do you want that?!"

"I don't care what you say, Liz, I WANT to do it!" cried Patty.

"I don't!"

"Scaredy cat!"

"Girls, quit bickering!" Kid commanded. "If we don't do it, this section of the forest is going to become an abattoir. Or do you want that monster down there to become a kishin?"

After a few seconds of thinking…

"Nope!"

"I guess not."

"Then it's settled," said Kid.

He closed his eyes and concentrated.

"Execution Mode."

Sensing the wavelengths of his partners was the easy part of a successful resonance. Even a meister with virtually no sixth sense (for example, that overly loud and obnoxious blue-haired student that Kid had often observed while overseeing student missions with his father) could execute the simple task with no difficulty if they were trying.

The difficult part was aligning the wavelengths so that they were in perfect synch. Even the slightest distraction, the smallest concentration-breaking event, could break the resonance apart and increase the exertion needed for the next attempt.

Fortunately, being a Grim Reaper tends to put most problems on hold, if not hang up completely and write an angry letter the phone company demanding to know why that call was allowed through in the first place.

Unless you're still in the body of a teenager, of course.

Kid could feel the intense power coursing through his whole body, manifesting mainly on his arms, but took care not to notice too much should they throw his focus. He felt metal creeping up his arms, locking around the two limbs in the form of massive, bazooka-like cannons so heavy that surely no ordinary human would be able to lift them.

He also took note of three thin black spikes, connected by what appeared to be crackling purple lightning, but Kid knew that it was actually his soul wavelength, charging before being passed down into Liz and Patty.

When the transformation was complete, the young reaper jumped out of the tree and landed between the monster and its prospective victim, squatting with his arms resting at either side.

"Resonance stable," Liz reported. "Black needle soul wavelength charging complete. Feedback in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…"

"Ready to fire!" Patty declared.

So Kid raised the cannons and pointed them straight into the monster's face.

"Death Cannon," he whispered, savouring the almost poetic manner in which the words rolled off his tongue.

He pulled the triggers.

His father had warned him that his Soul Resonance round would be far more powerful than his normal attacks, and boy was he correct about that. The blast from the twin cannons was enough to blast Kid back several inches across the grimy forest floor and the concurrent explosion of energy practically erased the monster from existence _and_ blasted a gigantic hole in the canopy, allowing sunlight to stream down upon the scene.

All that was left was a floating red orb about the size of a baseball which looked as though a flame was burning on its top. Kid picked it up by this little tail and examined it critically.

'Only one,' he thought. 'Shame: it's quite a good one. I'll have to take it in _konso_ until further notice.'

"Collect," he muttered, and to the naked eye it would appear that the soul was sucked into his arm. It was of course far more complex than that, but the details of a reaper's soul collection are far too intricate for human minds to comprehend.

From several feet behind Kid there was a high pitched scream of agony:

"HELP MEEE!"

The young reaper removed his weapons from their temporary storage (i.e. tucked into his trousers) so that they could retake human form, and together they helped the ex-victim into a sitting position.

The first thing that struck Kid about the boy was his age. From the voice he had expected a child, or perhaps even a woman, but this was a young man who was barely out of his teens, or perhaps still in them judging by the roundness of his face. He was dressed in a blue suit not unlike a military uniform, his left sleeve shredded to blood-soaked scraps where the kishin had struck him.

His hair was a light shade of reddish brown, with a single large curl protruding from the left side which caused Kid's fists to clench in rage. He would have made an attempt to remove it right there and then were it not for the fact that this person was clearly in extreme agony and traumatised to the core. Kid's conscience temporarily overrode his concern for symmetry.

Temporarily.

"Help me," the stranger blubbered wretchedly, "please, _help me…_"

"We can," Liz said while Kid was placing his hands on the young man's shoulders to stop him from shaking so much. "Just calm down; everything's gonna be okay-"

"No! No it's not! Please! Help me!"

"Will you please stop crying so much?" Kid commanded ineffectively whilst wondering what kind of accent that was. "You have no idea how much of a mess you're making of yourself!"

"Please! GERMANY!"

His scream echoed eerily around the trees. Kid wouldn't have been surprised if the moon could hear this man with all the noise he was making.

"Sis?"

"Yes, Patty?"

"Why did he just yell Germany?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?"

The more he stared at the offending curl, the thinner Kid's patience was worn.

"Pull yourself together!" he demanded, gripping the stranger's shoulders a little more tightly than was necessary. "Do you have a name?"

"Y-Yes…" the stranger replied with a sniff.

A few moments passed in which the only sound was the young man trying desperately to catch his breath.

"Well?" Kid egged on. "What is it?"

"F-Fe-Feliciano," the man replied nervously. "Feliciano Vargas."

"Feliciano," the reaper repeated. "That's an Italian name, isn't it?"

"S-Si," said Feliciano, who still sounded somewhat frightened. "B-But people just mostly c-call me Italy."

'Italy?' Kid thought. 'Why would someone have the same name as a country? At least now I know where that accent's from, but…'

"Well, Italy," he said, suddenly sounding cold, "there's something about you which has been bothering me from the moment I laid eyes on you."

His weapon partners eyed him curiously.

"_This._"

Without any further hesitation, the young reaper reached up and seized the offending curl, setting off a somewhat confusing reaction in the young man whose name apparently the same as a boot-shaped country.

His whole body froze and started to ever-so-faintly shiver, almost as though he were undergoing some kind of electric shock. His eyes, which up to this point had been tightly closed (either in fear or pain), popped wide open, revealing them to be golden brown in colour. His face flushed deep red in embarrassment, and Kid began to sense that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

So he let go, and nothing happened for about ten seconds.

Kid stood up.

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered awkwardly. "Had I known that your hair was so sensitive, I would've- I mean, you see-"

"PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!"

Italy was suddenly on his knees, clutching a white flag with his left hand and supporting his injured arm with his right. He waved the flag wildly as though swatting away some invisible flies.

"Please don't hurt me!" he repeated, crying resumed. "I promise I'll be a good prisoner! I'll tell you everything I know! I'll tell you everything I DON'T know! I won't be any trouble, just please, don't hurt me!"

Kid stared in stunned bemusement.

"…What?" he whispered hoarsely after a short while.

"Do you want to know Germany's secret plans for invading England?" Italy wailed, still waving the flag. "What about invading America? I can tell you! I-"

_**BANG.**_

It was strange that only after the gunshot and the terrified young man's unconscious fall to the ground did the young reaper notice the elder of his two partners, standing straight up and holding her younger sister in weapon form, the barrel aimed right at Italy's head.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Kid demanded.

"Kid, are you blind or just stupid?" asked Liz as her sister transformed and started looting. "This guy's obviously crazy, so let's just take his money and get out of here!"

"How many times do I have to TELL you?" Kid shouted. "You're not the Brooklyn Demons anymore! You're MY partners and it's a weapon's duty to do as their meister tells them!"

"Eh, it's no good anyway," said Patty. She straightened up and handed a small sheet of paper, stolen from Italy's pocket, to her sister while saying, "All I could find was this. Dumbass hasn't even got a packet of smokes on 'im."

Liz curiously unfolded the piece of paper and read the writing on it.

"What?" she asked. "I don't get it."

She handed the chit to Kid, perhaps in the hopes that he could make some sense of it.

"'To whoever has taken Italy prisoner this time'," he read aloud, "'please ensure that he has pretty girls to talk to and plenty of pasta to eat. Don't restrain his arms and legs while he is talking or he might die'. What?" He turned the paper over, but there was nothing on the other side, so he folded it up and put it in his pocket for future reference.

"What the hell have I gotten myself into?" he wondered aloud.

* * *

**There it is: the first chapter of The Hetalian Job. Like it says in the description, this is Soul Eater. There will be violence, swearing and blood. However, SE is a shonen, so it's not enough for a M rating. Also, the rest of the chapters will be longer than this one.**

**Reviews are welcome, so feel free! Here's a rose to encourage you a little more: -{- **


	2. First Impressions

Pain.

In his arm.

More pain than he'd ever felt in his entire life, and he'd had a _lot_ of life. He found himself wondering if it would stop if he were to get rid of the arm entirely. It was like burning: unbearable heat tearing his body apart.

And yet he felt warm. Comfortable almost. And he was lying on some sort of stone. Was this what it felt like to die? Was he dying?

No! No! He couldn't die! There was still so much he hadn't done! And what if he didn't die but he was just scarred for life? Well, perhaps he was okay with that, he just didn't want to DIE!

"Hey, I think he's waking up!"

Wait. Who was that? It sounded like a girl- no, a young woman. She sounded pretty, too.

"He's so cute!" Another girl, this one a lot younger sounding. "Kid, can we keep him? Please, please, please can we keep him?"

"Well, I don't know, Patty." A young man, apparently still young enough to be called a kid. "I mean, it's a pretty big responsibility. It means you'll have to feed him and clean up after him-"

"I can do that, Kid!" cried the higher voice from the girl apparently named Patty.

There was an exasperated sigh. Maybe if he opened his eyes a little…

"I honestly can never tell whether you're serious or not," commented the kid. "No, you can't keep him, because he's a human being and if you were to keep him in the sense you're talking about, it would be dehumanizing. Not to mention against the law!"

He became aware of a crackling noise and the fact that his feet were considerably warmer than the rest of his body. A fire. That explained the warmth. And in the distance, cicadas chirruping. Was it night time already?

A light, cool breeze blew through his hair and gently tickled his face. It definitely felt like night time.

Through the cloying fog of white hot agony, he became aware of another sensation. That of rough fabric being wrapped liberally around his arm. It rubbed uncomfortably against his skin and tickled his bare flesh unpleasantly. He was gripped by an overwhelming urge to scratch and raised his other arm to do so-

-and felt it gripped by a hand which was as shockingly strong as it was freezing cold. It was like having his wrist encased in ice made of concrete. If such a thing was possible.

"I advise you don't touch," said the voice of the young man. "You were badly wounded and you lost a lot of blood. The fact that you are still alive can be considered little more than a miracle."

That was it. He had to know more.

Italy opened his eyes.

The first thing that struck him about the one addressed only as 'Kid' was his youth. Judging by the voice, he had expected someone at least as old as he was (physically, that is) but this boy didn't look a day over fifteen. He was wearing a rather official looking suit adorned with white rectangle patterns in strips on the front, and his two-toned golden eyes were alarmingly stern.

Observation proved that he was responsible for the uncomfortable fabric replacing the sleeve on his left arm.

They were bandages. There was blood on them. _Italy's_ blood.

"W…" He tried to talk, but somehow couldn't formulate the words properly. "Wh… What… What ha…"

"Are you trying to ask what happened?" asked the kid, pausing in his amateur medical treatment. "Why, do you not remember? I should think an incident like that would be impossible to forget."

He resumed wrapping Italy's arm in gauze.

"Then again," he continued as though thinking aloud, "I suppose some form of trauma-induced amnesia would be understandable after such a violent occurrence or after being shot in the head, which is infinitely more likel-"

"Shot in the head?!" Italy yelled in horror.

"Will you DROP THAT already?"

Someone else. The first person to have spoken. It was a young woman with long dark blonde hair and blue eyes. Another girl, a younger one with short yellow-blonde hair and equally blue eyes (perhaps the aforementioned Patty) started laughing uncontrollably.

"Seriously, Kid," said the older girl, "It's pretty obvious that he's fine already. Let's just leave him and get out of here."

"Is that what you used to do in the streets of Brooklyn?" demanded the boy. "Just abandoned an injured person when they needed help? Liz, you need to start looking out for people other than yourself!"

"Hey, I started doing that years ago!" the girl named Liz objected. "Why the fuck do you think Patty's still alive?"

"And watch your mouth!"

"Skull-toting jackass!"

"Unappreciative street thug!"

"OCD nutcase!"

"Stop fighting!" cried Italy. "I hate it when people fight, people are always fighting, just stop it! Stop it! Please!"

The two girls and the boy immediately fell silent and looked at the young man, who now had tears brewing in his almost closed eyes. The elder girl sighed.

"I think we're getting off on the wrong foot here," she said, and placed a hand on her chest. "I'm Liz Thompson. This is my little sister Patty-"

"Hi!" said Patty, waving enthusiastically.

"-and Mr Cheerful right there is Death the Kid. We just call him Kid though, 'coz it's easier."

Kid shot the girls a sour look which only made them giggle before turning back to the bandaging. Italy glanced at him and gulped fearfully. Were these people trustworthy? They seemed friendly enough, but…

"C-Ciao," he stammered. "I'm Italy."

"We know," the trio said collectively.

Italy was stunned.

"Y-you do?" he asked.

"Of course!" said Patty. "You told us so, don't you remember? But you also told us your name was Felly-something, which was kinda confusing. Which is it, Italy or Felly-something?"

"Ve~ Italy," said Italy, feeling a little more comforted now that he knew these people's names. He watched as Kid finished bandaging his upper arm and secured it with a safety pin just below his shoulder.

"There," he said. "I'm not what you could call a trained paramedic, but be glad I had these bandages with me. If there's one thing carrying out missions for my father has taught me, it's that I should be prepared for the worst."

"The worst?" Italy said cluelessly. "Ve~ what's the worst?"

Kid gave him a look which quite plainly said 'What do you think?'

"We should probably get some rest," he said, joining his partners on the far side of the crackling fire. "I contacted Father. He seemed particularly interested when I mentioned Italy."

Italy cocked his head curiously.

"OMIGOSH YOU'RE JUST SO CUTE!" screamed Patty, and she dived over the small fire to either rugby-tackle the hapless young man or wrap him in a choking hug. "We have to take you back with us! WE HAVE TO!"

For a moment, Italy just sat there. Eventually he found the courage to pat Patty on the back, laughing nervously.

"Patty, please at least try to control yourself," said Kid, face reddening in embarrassment as he tried to get comfortable on the rocky ground. "Sometimes I wonder why I tracked down you girls in the first place."

"Because you're an OCD nutcase?"

"Stop it, Liz."

They settled down – the sisters huddled together and Kid resting on the floor with his head on his arms – and drifted off to sleep, leaving Italy the only one awake and, perhaps, the only one who was so confused he wanted to scream.

He looked around, which was difficult since the fire was the only source of light. There were trees all around, and yet even he could tell that he was sitting against a rock. Some sort of rocky outcrop, maybe? Really, really deep in the woods? Was that an owl?

Yes, that was an owl. Contrary to what storybooks had told him, it didn't go "to-whit to-whoo," which was the sound which all small children were lead to believe that owls made. It really sounded more like a young gorilla with a head cold.

Was he still in Europe? It felt like it.

He looked down at his left arm. His hand, elbow and shoulder were free, but everything else was heavily and tightly bandaged. Here and there were spots of blood, but they had long since dried to a rather odd dark brown colour. Any other leaks were completely covered up. It was only a little less agonisingly painful than it had been a few minutes ago, when he had first come round.

'Ve~ maybe it'll stop hurting if I don't think about it,' thought Italy. 'Wait, do I say "ve~" even in my thoughts? Ve~ that's kinda weird.'

He rubbed his bandaged arm, hoping that maybe it would get rid of some of the pain, but it was to no avail. It just burnt his fingers a little. His hand and elbow were starting to get a little cold, so he rubbed them instead to warm them up.

Wind rushed through the leaves up above and made them rustle as it whistled through the branches. Italy shuffled a little closer to the fire, eager to get as warm as possible.

He wished he could be in bed. Back at home. Maybe by this time Germany would already be asleep, and he could get into bed with him.

'Why can't I remember being attacked?' he thought. 'If that's actually what happened…'

He felt the back of his head, expecting to find blood gushing out of a gaping hole, or maybe even the feeling of his own exposed brain, but (fortunately) there was nothing. But why? Did that boy – Kid – didn't he say that he was shot in the head? His hand explored every inch of his skull, but couldn't find a single place where a bullet could have gained entry.

The breeze blowing through the canopy was making the atmosphere incredibly spooky. He raised his uninjured arm, hand over the fire, and with nothing better to do he began to chant a song he'd overheard from England:

"Bring on the fire, bring on the hell, set everything ablaze so that no trace remains… bring on the fire, bring on the hell, set everything abl-"

"Are you trying to summon a kishin?"

Italy leapt back in shock. He accidentally hit his arm on the ground and clutched it with a yelp of pain before staring at the teenage boy who, up until now, he had believed was fast asleep.

"You're awake!" Italy cried. "Why are you awake? I thought you were asleep, or did I wake you up? I did, didn't I? I'm sorry, please don't hate me! I didn't mean to wake you up-"

Kid leaned forward and clapped a hand over the wittering man's mouth. He indicated the sleeping girls with a nod of his head, causing Italy to fall silent almost instantly.

"I wanted to wait until they were asleep," he explained. "I didn't want to have Liz constantly swearing or Patty constantly laughing while we're trying to have a conversation."

"Ve~ are they really like that?" asked Italy.

"They were worse when I first found them," said Kid. "They grew up on the streets of Brooklyn and they had to fight for everything. Needless to say, by the time I found them they were complete thugs. I'm not sure if they'll ever manage to fully adjust."

"They look like ordinary pretty girls to me," Italy commented.

Kid looked over at the sleeping sisters. Liz was lying on her side with her hair falling over her face and Patty was cuddling up to her while making small "coo" noises. Occasionally, she would mumble something about a giraffe.

"Don't be fooled," said Kid. "I first met them when they tried to mug me. It was rather surprising to be walking through New York one moment and find a teenage girl pointing her sister in my face the next." Seeing the bemusement in Italy's face, he thought it necessary to add the following: "They're Demon Pistols. They have the ability to transform into weapons. Don't you know that?"

Italy shook his head.

"Are they really so mean?" he asked.

"You have no idea," Kid said with a sigh.

"Ve~ they're also very pretty though," stated Italy. "I bet they'd send Big Brother France running away with his metaphorical tail between his legs!"

He started to laugh. Kid considered speaking up – telling him that his self-stated metaphor didn't really work – but couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Instead, he decided to address the elephant in the room.

"Are you being serious?" he asked.

Italy stopped laughing abruptly and raised a curious eyebrow, causing Kid's fists to clench at such blatant abuse of symmetry.

"Wha?" said the brunette man. "I don't understand, what do you mean, ve~?"

"You claim that your name is Italy," said Kid, frustration spilling over like a ruptured dam. "You make mentions of people with names like France and Germany, as though you and they were people rather than countries and you don't say why. And perhaps most frustratingly of all, you have a curl of hair on the left side of your head but not on the right! It's disgusting! _You're_ disgusting!"

By now he was on his knees, breathing heavily and looming over the man despite his smaller stature. A quick glance at his sleeping partners told him that he should probably tone it down, lest they awaken and make things worse, but it looked like that was about to happen anyway. Kid's little symmetry rants had never really amounted to much (which could seriously piss him off on numerous occasions) but now Italy looked as though he were about to start crying.

"You…" he said quietly, "you really… think I'm… I'm disgusting?"

Kid could tell that a single misplaced word could tip the man over the edge and into Tear Central. He unclenched his fists in a slightly futile attempt to look less intimidating and took a deep breath, trying his best to calm down a little.

"It's not you in general that I find disgusting," he said, "it's just that curl. Is there any way you could get rid of it?" He thought it best to ask this question, considering what had happened earlier.

"I- I- I can't," Italy said, fear pushing him into stutter territory. "You see, I- it doesn't work that way-"

"It's. Just. _Hair_." Kid stood up and walked around the fire to the injured young man who began to shrink away. "It'll only take a second and then you'll be fine, now hold still!"

As before, he grabbed the curl and pulled.

"What is this?" he asked. "It's not like normal hair…"

It was only a matter of time now. Any second, he would come. Italy was wishing- no, hoping or maybe even praying that Romano would explode from the trees: he would jump out of nowhere, as he had so many times before, uppercut the hell out of whoever was pulling on his brother's hair and probably call him a bastard of some sort.

But nothing happened. Nothing and no-one came to his rescue.

"Please stop…" In his discomfort, Italy could barely manage anything more than a fearful squeak. "You don't know what you're doing, please _stop_."

Kid paid no heed to his pleas. In fact, if anything, he pulled harder.

What happened next took less than half a second and neither participants knew exactly what occurred. Suddenly, Kid was sprawled on the floor with a small trickle of blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth and staring in alarm at Italy, who was standing over him with his uninjured arm raised protectively before his body, hand balled into a tight fist and panting like he'd just run a marathon.

The teenager wiped the blood away with his thumb and eyed the red liquid with a curious expression.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a lot stronger than you look?" he asked.

He was smiling. He'd just been punched in the face and he actually had the gall to SMILE. Italy stared at him, wondering how anyone could possibly smile after such an attack.

Then he looked at his fist and realised it. He had _hurt_ someone. _On purpose. _Something he had only ever done once before in his whole life. Sure, it was only because there was no-one there to help him, no matter how he pleaded, and it was obviously the last resort, but still…

He stumbled away from Kid, tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground, whimpering as his bandaged arm collided with the stone.

It was nothing short of a miracle that Liz and Patty remained asleep, save for Patty mumbling, "I wanna ride a giraffe."

Kid stood up.

"I see," he said. "That's how it is, is it?"

Italy didn't reply. He rolled onto his side and curled up into as tight a ball as he could manage.

"I can tell that I'm not going to be able to remove that curl any time soon," Kid continued regardless. "I don't suppose you would ever consider getting rid of it yourself?"

Still no answer. Instead, Italy's body began to shake.

He was crying.

"I'll take that as a no," said Kid. He laid down on the ground and soon fell asleep while Italy continued to weep, his body wracked with quiet, heartbroken sobs of anguish.

"Germany," the young man moaned wretchedly. "I want Germany."

He had to come. Germany always came for Italy when he needed him, so why not now? They pinkie swore on it, didn't they? Any second now he was going to come in all guns blazing and take Italy home. Away from these strangers. The thuggish girl who swore and shouted too much and the crazy girl who laughed more than necessary and the insane boy who had pulled on Italy's curl.

He reached into his shirt and felt cold metal. The cross pendant. His fingers closed around it, perhaps in the hope that if he squeezed it hard enough, it would summon the friend who had always looked out for him, no matter what stupid situation he found himself in.

"Where are you, Germany?" he asked the empty air.

Aside from the quiet crackle of the fire and the occasional hoot of an owl, his sobs were the only noise for the rest of the night.

* * *

Kid was the first to awaken the next morning. It was the empty time before dawn, when the sky is a dull grey rather than the usual blue or black, the sun has yet to rise, the stars are fading away and anyone with half an ounce of common sense is still sound asleep and has probably forgotten to set their alarm clock to the right time. Or just didn't turn it on.

He looked over at Liz and Patty. They were still huddled together, perhaps for warmth, and were both sound asleep.

'I can never quite work out what's going on with those two,' he thought. 'They stick to each other like superglued fingers and they've never fought with each other even once as far as I can tell. I wonder: is that what it's like to have a sibling?'

Then he saw Italy, who was still curled up in a tight ball. Closer examination showed that his eyes were still red and puffy from crying, but his slow breathing indicated a deep sleep worthy of the gods.

'He cried himself to sleep,' Kid thought. 'He's a grown man and yet he has the mind of a child. He's rather like Patty in that respect, except Patty doesn't cry nearly as much. And his clothes indicate a military rank, most likely extremely low, but how did a person like this ever get into the army in the first place?'

Birds began to twitter overhead as the young reaper knelt down next to his injured acquaintance, who curled up even tighter as though unconsciously disturbed by Kid's presence.

So he decided to try something else.

He turned to the smouldering remains of the fire, the flames having long since died out, sorted through the charcoal until he found a glowing ember and grabbed it.

It was painful. Very painful. Smoke trickled out of his clenched fingers as he gritted his teeth, resolving to ignore the pain and his natural reflexes, which were screaming at him to drop it and get the hell away from it.

The sky began to lighten as the sun made its way over the horizon, hidden by the trees but still providing a little more visibility.

'That should be enough,' Kid thought, and he dropped the ember and examined his hand to see…

…nothing. There was no damage whatsoever. Not even a little blackening.

Kid sighed and slammed the hand into his face. Yet another failure. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a skull-emblazed notepad only slightly bigger than his palms, along with a small pen, and began to write:

_Extreme heat, as drawn from a slightly weak ember, appears to have as much effect on my body as a naked flame. That is to say, I felt the pain but did not receive any adverse physical effects of any kind. It would be fair to say that the same would apply to super-heated metal. This officially rules out all plausible heat related damage to the reaper body, save for molten lava (however, this is obviously anything but plausible)._

'How much more is it going to take?' he thought as he put away the notepad and pen. 'Maybe I should try the blowtorch again, or maybe a combination of heat sources would have an effect. Or maybe not: if they did, my hand would already be little more than a smouldering stump.'

He looked around. No-one else was awake.

As the sun rose higher into the sky, Kid found himself sinking into the murky, irresistible depths of one of humanity's greatest creations: boredom. He considered waking up Liz and Patty, but chances were that Patty would just laugh while Liz complained. Waking up Italy was clearly out of the question: he would probably start crying again.

He reached into the fire and pulled out a lump of charcoal. After smashing it into a serviceable pencil shape, he started to draw on the stone he was sitting on. The charcoal was soft and crumbly, so he had to make the same markings several times in order for them to show up properly, but by the time he was finished he was rather proud of his dullness-induced doodle.

"Wow, that's so cool!"

It seemed they had woken up anyway.

"Kid, what're you drawing?" asked Liz. "Seriously, what the hell is that? It looks like a vase."

"Nuh-uh!" said Patty. "It's two faces, see?"

"I only see a vase. Or maybe some kind of candlestick. Like the silver ones we have back home, only it looks more squashed."

"No, it's two people facing each other!" Patty's finger descended upon the charcoal marking. "See sis, there's a forehead, down here's the nose, there's the lips and the chin, and it's the same on the other side."

Liz turned her head and squinted.

"Now it looks more like a fancy cup," she commented. "Kid, will you just tell us what it is?"

"It's an optical illusion," Kid explained, "which means it's not really supposed to look like anything. It could be a vase, a candlestick or two faces. It could be all of these at once and at the same time, none of them. I don't really care about that. I just like it because it's an illusion which demands only the most perfect symmetry."

He didn't see, but could tell that Liz's face fell.

"_That's_ what you care about?" she asked. "Just how mental are you?"

"There's nothing wrong with having an appreciation for symmetry," Kid said as he stood up. "If anything, it simply means that I have a finely organized mind. Your hair's a mess, by the way."

Patty giggled helplessly while Liz desperately tried to smooth out and untangle her long blonde hair using only her fingers. Kid knelt down beside Italy and gently shook his shoulder.

"Italy," he said, "it's time to wake up."

"Tired," the brunette man groaned in disapproval.

"Well, I'm sorry," Kid said (truly meaning it despite what you may think), "but we're leaving for Death City now and I want to take you back to meet my father."

Italy eyed Kid fearfully.

"Do you promise not to pull on my curl again?" he asked.

"B-But you-"

"I hate when people pull on my curl. Especially strangers, I hate it! Please promise you won't pull my hair!"

He was really beginning to get on the young reaper's nerves, but Kid knew that in such a mental state, there was no way he could leave the man to his own devices. Especially in a place like this.

"I promise," he said.

Italy smiled and sat up, which was when Kid noticed his still-clenched fist which now had string trailing out of it that wrapped around his neck.

"What's that?" he asked.

Still smiling, Italy opened his hand and suddenly yelped in shock.

"Blood!" he cried. "There's _blood!_"

He had clutched the cross so tightly that it had cut into his hand.

* * *

**Okay, moving into Unnerving Land there. I apologise gravely if anybody is out of character - you can probably figure out that this is all set before the main story in Soul Eater, but I don't think Hetalia has a specific time line.**

**Les commentaires sont les bienvenus!**


	3. Trans-Atlantis

"Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I'm sure. I've given it some careful thought and I think this will be the easiest way to do it."

"It's just… ve~ it doesn't feel very _safe_."

"Explain."

"It's not very big. How am I going to fit on?"

"You're only a little bit larger than I am, and if I keep Liz and Patty tucked into my pants, then we'll have plenty of room if you can find a way to hang off the end. It shouldn't be too difficult even for a person like you."

"Ve~ I've never done this sort of thing before."

"I'm not surprised: you don't exactly look the type. You'll have to hold onto my arm pretty tightly, or else you'll fall off and probably die, and I don't think either of us wants that to happen."

"…Do you really call it Beelzebub?"

Kid chose to ignore the latest question. He stepped onto the waiting board – various twigs and leaves crunched under the added weight of his body – and held out his hand, waiting for Italy to take it.

The young man was understandably hesitant. He had discovered the previous night that Kid's hands were incredibly, inconceivably cold, but definitely a lot stronger than the hands of a teenage boy were supposed to be. He had proven that he could keep a firm grip on Italy's arm, which was in itself a little reassuring at least, considering what they were doing now.

But surely it was only a skateboard! Just a skateboard with cartoonish, slightly eerie skulls painted on the underside. Wasn't it? Well, it had come out of Kid's arm surrounded by purple light, so it was probably different, but…

Italy took a deep breath in through the nose and gulped fearfully. He didn't want any other injuries to worry about. Not only did he now have his left arm wrapped liberally in bandages, but now that same arm had cuts in the hand: a slightly gruesome imprint of the cold metal pendant he still bore around his neck. He uncurled his fingers, looked at the cuts and winced at the memory.

On the other hand (figuratively, that is) this boy had saved his life, even if Italy couldn't remember it for some reason. He could tell that he had good intentions at heart – he had promised not to try to pull off Italy's curl anymore, although he had sounded a little reluctant – and he was only a kid, so he couldn't do too much damage, right?

"Well?" said Kid. "What're you waiting for?"

"Can we please get a move on and go already?" Liz demanded, her voice tinny due to her being in weapon form. "I've already spent way longer than I want being stuck next to Kid's ass!"

"Hey sis, you really shouldn't talk like that," Patty piped up. "You gotta admit that there're worse places he could've stuck us. And besides, Kid has a nice ass!"

"What?" Kid asked quietly without looking down.

"Yeah, that's true," Liz admitted. "If we were gonna be stuck next to any guy's ass, I'd choose Kid. No questions asked."

"Girls, I appreciate the posterior-related compliments," said Kid, "but there is a time and a place for this sort of talk… wait, no there isn't! Forget it. Forget I said that. Italy, are you coming or not?"

Italy was still weighing the pros and cons. A small bead of sweat trickled off his forehead – perhaps it was evidence of his brain overheating from thinking.

'Those girls might be scary and angry,' he thought, 'but they're also really pretty and I bet they'd be nice if I got to know them. And Kid kinda talks like England when he's angry. Or that guy from England's TV show about aliens. Maybe if I go with him we can get to know each other a little better, and he might not be so angry and scary all the time and we all can have pasta!'

When he took _that_ into consideration, it was impossible to say no.

He took Kid's hand and found himself yanked forward, closer to the waiting board.

"You might want to find room to stand," said Kid.

"Why would I want to find room to staAAAAAAAH!"

He didn't know what he had been expecting. Maybe it had been for the board to suddenly lift up off the ground and leave him dangling, or maybe he hadn't. In any case it took quite a bit of dangling and flailing around wildly before he was able to get a foot on the end of the board.

"Straighten up," Kid commanded abrasively, and Italy straightened up. He feared that if he pulled on the boy's arm any harder, it was going to fall off.

"Are you stable?" asked Kid.

"Ve~ I think so," Italy replied. He found that if he stuck out his other leg behind him, it gave him much more balance than if he tried to squeeze both feet onto what little space he had reserved. Kid was taking up most of the space: he was the pilot after all, if that was an appropriate name. What was the name you gave to someone who flew a skateboard?

If Liz was to be believed, it was 'nutcase'.

"Make sure you hold on tightly!" Kid repeated. "I've never flown with a passenger who isn't Liz or Patty before, so things could get a little tricky! Whatever you do, don't look straight down or you'll just get dizzy! It's very rare that we'll pass over a landscape which is symmetrical!"

By now they were hovering just above the trees. Italy gulped again and tightened his grip on Kid's icy hand.

"Get ready," the boy commanded.

And they were off, soaring through the air like a… a… thing that soars through the air. A plane, maybe? Some kind of over-caffeinated zeppelin? Or maybe an eagle. They can go up pretty high in the sky, right?

While Kid focused intently on the area before him, Italy hung off his arm like a dead weight and screamed his heart out. Soon, however, they were met with a clash of interests.

"Will you please stop screaming?" Kid asked, raising his voice to be heard over the rushing of the wind through their ears. "If I'm distracted and we run into turbulence, we could all be done for!"

"I'm sorry!" Italy shouted back. "I've never flown like this before and I'm really, really scared I'm going to lose my grip and fall off and plunge to a horrible death!"

"Don't think about that!" Kid replied. "Try thinking about something else!"

"Hey Kid, I was just wondering," Patty piped up. "Why do they call that place the Black Forest? It's not black! None of the trees in there are black, so it doesn't make any sense!"

"Look back at it," said Kid. "From the air, all of the trees compacted make it look as though it were black. I think it may have been named before eyesight was invented."

With yet another fearful gulp, Italy willed himself to look back, and gasped in wonderment.

The view was spectacular. Rolling hills covered in never-ending grasses and trees stretched out as far as the eye could see beneath a flawless sky of brilliant blue, the colour of cornflowers. It paled to near white where it touched the earth, tainted by the glow of the sun, and deepened to a near sapphire colour where it rested over their heads. It all had to be seen to be believed.

'Ve~ I wish we could stop up here for a moment,' Italy thought wistfully. 'Then maybe I could have stopped and painted a nice picture. I'm sure it would look good. I also wish I had some painting things with me.'

"Enjoying the view?" asked Kid, having noticed the young man's bedazzlement.

"Ve~ it's beautiful!" cried Italy. "Wait, aren't you supposed to be looking where you're going?"

"Don't worry," said Kid. "We're not flying anywhere near high enough to be worrying about planes, the ground is most certainly _not_ getting closer, there isn't a cloud in the sky and the sun is shining nice and brightly. I think we can afford to relax a little for the time being."

Speaking of which, something appeared to be wrong with the sun. Even Italy knew that you should never look directly at it, even with eye protection, but there was definitely something strange going on. He had always been used to its constant, perfect roundness, its infallible brightness and heat and above all the fact that it was always, from his point of view, completely and totally blank.

But now it was looking a little… different. It was like another image was laid over the top, but it was faint and barely noticeable unless you knew what you were looking for. The image in particular was of a huge, dirty yellow orb covered in massive spikes and bearing beady little eyes which were disproportionate to a terrifyingly huge grin which stretched and contorted with faint laughter. Very faint laughter, on the edge of hearing.

"Ve~ is something wrong with the sun?" Italy asked nervously. "It's starting to look kinda weird."

Kid looked up at the sun, with its spiked surface, tiny eyes and nightmarish grin engaged in perpetual laughter, but failed to see any kind of problem.

"Maybe the high altitude is getting to you," he said, and dropped down a little lower in the sky. It quickly became a little easier to breathe, and whatever was going on with the sun was now a little less noticeable.

Italy leaned forward and looked ahead of Kid, seeing only European countryside and the thin, barely visible blue line which was the sea sitting just below the sky.

"Kid?" he said. "Can I ask a question?"

"Provided it's not about my hair, yes," said Kid.

"I wasn't going to ask about your hair," said Italy, "I was wondering: how fast are we going, ve~?"

Kid was silent for a few moments, pondering a way in which to answer this question without freaking out Italy so much that he lost his grip and fell to a messy death.

"Well, let me put it this way," he eventually replied. "If we were in a car, we'd most definitely be over the speed limit."

Italy gulped.

"And stop gulping! It's beginning to get on my nerves!"

He fell silent.

For a few minutes, at least.

"Ve~ I'm hungry."

Maybe they could stop somewhere and get some pasta. They'd already passed over several towns which looked as though they might have some nice restaurants. Perhaps they could turn back?

Or not. Kid reached into his pocket and tossed Italy an apple.

"Bon appetite," he deadpanned.

The fruit was deep red, not quite as deep as blood, and shone flawlessly in the light of the sun. Italy looked up at Kid and was about to ask another question, but the young gunman had pulled out another apple and was chowing down with alarming ferocity. Sensing that there wasn't much chance of getting any pasta while flying through the air on some kind of magic skateboard (which holding the freezing cold hand of a rather scary boy) Italy bit into the apple.

It was sweet and juicy, which was surprising considering it had come out of Kid's pocket. How did it fit in there, anyway? And where had he got the second one from? Were his pockets bigger on the inside or something?

As Italy took another bite, he looked up and saw that Kid had already finished his first apple and was now making a start on a second.

'He must _really_ like apples,' Italy thought. 'Ve~ I wonder where he's putting the cores?'

He hazarded a look down and saw that they had just passed the coast. Lush green forests and jade-coloured fields had given way to bustling towns, which had become a strip of golden-white sand bordering the endless blue of the Atlantic Ocean. The sun didn't appear to have moved at all for some reason, but Italy was beginning to feel drowsy. How long had they been flying, exactly?

"Are you alright?" asked Kid. "Don't fall asleep."

"I'll try not to," said Italy. "Ve~ I don't know why I'm feeling tired all of a sudden."

"It's because we're passing through time zones," Kid explained. "I wouldn't be surprised if you started to get tired, but if you fall asleep I won't be able to hold you up on my own, so stay awake, do you hear me?"

"_Si_, I hear you. By the way, _grazie_ for the apple."

"That's alright. Would you like another?"

Something in Italy's mind exploded. Just how many apples did Kid have stashed away in his pockets? How many _pockets_ did he have in his pockets? Was he carrying a whole bushel in there somewhere?

He wanted to refuse because this was too weird, but he was still hungry too.

"_Si_, yes please."

And then Italy found himself bombarded with no less than three apples which he only just managed to pocket in his breeches before they were lost to the atmosphere. He stared at Kid in alarm, only to see that the boy was eating yet _another_ apple and quite obviously had one stuffed into his sleeve.

'Eight apples?' Italy thought. 'He carries around eight apples stuffed into his pockets? …Okay.'

Not much was said for the rest of the trip over the Atlantic, except for this little exchange:

"Ve~ Can you tell me why you had eight apples?"

"Two reasons. Number one: eight is the perfect number. No matter how you cut it, vertically or horizontally, it remains perfectly symmetrical. I let you have four so that they'd be evenly divided between the two of us. Number two: I like apples."

"Number three: you're an OCD nutcase."

"You said it, sis!"

After this, it was several hours – neither the teenage reaper nor the nation or the two pistols were keeping track of the time (not very well anyway) – before they reached the east coast of the United States of America (it was pretty damn awkward). That was when their problems really began. Somewhere over… it may have been Virginia or Kentucky, maybe even Missouri, a deafening roaring noise filled the until-then empty air.

"WHAT IS THAT?!" screamed Italy in terror. "WHAT'S THAT NOISE?! KID, WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING OOOOOOOOOOOOOON?!"

"Shit," Kid swore quietly, "these guys again?"

Soon the source of the noise became apparent. It was pretty hard to ignore it or tune it out when it was coming from a pair of planes which drew up alongside the flying skateboard, flanking it on either side in an attempt to prevent escape.

"WHAT ARE THESE GUYS DOING HERE?!" Italy shrieked.

"Those IDIOTS!" cried Kid. "When are they going to stop interfering with my flights? I don't need authorisation to fly over United States airspace because I'm a GODDAMN GRIM REAPER!"

Italy felt as though his body had just turned to stone.

"Wha…?" he murmured. "But-But how could you-"

"It's a long story!" Kid replied. "I'll explain once we get to Death City!"

He looked at the pilots on his left and right. Both of them motioned for him to descend to a lower altitude. When Kid shook his head, they only repeated the motion.

"Damn," the teen muttered, "I'm gonna have to try something else. Italy, I want you to close your eyes."

"Ve~ they're already closed!"

"Then CLOSE THEM TIGHTER! I'm not sure what's going to happen, so I recommend you don't look!"

Without waiting for another command, Italy placed his hand over his face, shielding his eyes from whatever was going on. He tightened his grip on Kid's hand; by now, the young reaper was wondering how many broken fingers he would have by the time he got home.

Okay.

The first thing he had to do was regulate the level, speed, direction and height of Beelzebub. One thing he definitely did not want to happen was a sudden plunge to a fast and very untidy doom on the ground far, far below.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, relaxing his body and mind as much as he dared at this altitude. He could already sense the souls of the pilots in the planes by his side. If he concentrated, they became as clear as sunlight. They were nervous, he noted, and growing in confusion. Both were dedicated to their jobs, but seemed doubtful as to what to do in this situation. Kid could tell that if he hesitated too long with this, he would be shot out of the sky in no time.

It wouldn't matter. They would probably pull away after this.

He began to resonate with their souls.

For any other person, meister or not, resonance with another person (particularly one who wasn't a weapon) was difficult enough in its own, let alone with _two_ other people. Reapers, however, found it only natural. How else would they be able to allow multiple souls into the realm beyond death? To do it one by one would just be tedious, not to mention tiring, even if it was only a small portion of their purpose in the world. He knew for a fact that his father did it almost constantly. People all over the world died every day. Someone had to deal with all those souls. Who knows what could happen if they were just left to pile up?

It would make one hell of a mess.

That should do it. He didn't have to look to know that both of the pilots were now screaming into their oxygen masks, having seen the sun properly for the first time in their lives. Almost instantly the roaring of their engines faded, replaced only by the rushing of the wind in his ears, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Whoa," said Liz once she realised what had just happened. "That was cruel even by my standards."

"Wow, did you see those guy's faces?" cried Patty. "They were totally freaking out, I can't believe Kid just did that!"

"Wasn't that pretty reckless, though?" asked Liz. "Those guys aren't meisters or weapons, they're just ordinary people. What if they start going around talking about how there's this big conspiracy about the sun and the moon or something?"

"Don't worry," Kid replied calmly. "If you were to start telling everybody that the sun had a face and was always laughing, I have no doubt that they'd think you were absolutely crazy."

"Crazier than you?" Liz's face wasn't shown, but the tone of her voice suggested she was smiling.

"Probably not _that_ bad," Patty said, and started giggling like crazy.

Kid rolled his eyes.

"What do you think, Italy?" he asked his third companion.

There was no reply, but he could still feel the iron-like grip on his hand. When he looked back, he saw that the man was cowering, his injured hand clamped tightly over his eyes. He was also whimpering, albeit quietly. He didn't seem to have noticed that the danger had passed.

So Kid leaned around, hand outstretched and reaching for the curl-

"WHA! I'm okay! I'm okay!"

"Next time, please respond when I ask you a question," Kid requested. "The planes are gone and hopefully we won't run into any more for the rest of our journey."

Italy surveyed the landscape, which had given way to a dusty orange plain which seemed to go on forever. This in turn became a golden desert of endless dunes, dry as a bone and almost flawlessly empty.

"Ve~ where are we now?" he asked.

Kid looked around too.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," he commented, "and we're certainly not over the rainbow. We should be coming up on Death City soon."

Italy fell quiet, but only for a moment.

"But how were we able to get here from the Black Forest so quickly?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," said Kid. "Meisters always seem to travel much faster than ordinary humans, especially when it comes to moving between missions and the DWMA. Maybe I'll ask my father about it when we get back."

"Ve~ your father," said Italy, "you keep mentioning him. What's he like?"

Kid smiled.

"He's a little… different."

Again, no reply. Kid turned back to what was in front of him.

"A word of warning," he said. "If you fall asleep here, I won't do anything to prevent you from falling, because we're so close to home that you can see it."

Italy leaned forward and saw a small black blotch marring the golden sand up ahead. He was too far away to make out any specific details, but couldn't deny that there was something inherently ominous about it. It was an aura of eeriness which he could feel even at this great distance.

"Ve~ I don't like it," he muttered.

"Everyone gets a little unnerved by Death City," said Kid. "You'll get used to eventually."

"Yeah, about that," said Liz, "isn't that, like, _exactly_ what you said to me and Patty? I had skull nightmares for weeks after arriving in that place! Say what you will, but your father is fucking creepy!"

"Believe me when I say that he used to be a lot creepier!" Kid snapped in return. "And a lot more asymmetrical too!" He shivered at the thought.

Patty yawned.

"I dunno about you guys," she said in a somewhat subdued voice, "but I'm gonna take a nap when we get back. I always get tired when we fly around the world like that."

Italy moaned quietly in reply, too tired out to say anything else.

"You can sleep to your heart's content once we arrive," Kid informed him. "You should also keep your sleeve rolled up. You'll attract far less stares with bandages than you will with a torn rag, although it pains me to say you'll look horribly asymmetrical."

"Okay," Italy groaned.

He leaned forward again, and his jaw almost hit the ground far below.

He'd seen and survived many strange and often terrifying things in his time: the First and Second World Wars, the Renaissance, the Black Death pandemic and Silvio Berlusconi to name a few, but Death City was something else entirely. It rose like a mountain out of the endless golden sands of the desert, a monstrosity of black and red and white which shone palest blue under the glaring, unblocked light of the sun. It looked more like a truly tremendous castle than a city, or as stated before, a mountain of marble structures.

Perhaps the most eye-catching structure was the palace-like building which stood atop the highest point of the city. It was a mass of huge black towers with pointed red roofs, decorated with more small skulls. Three tremendous skulls adorned the front, the largest central one having a huge blood coloured spike protruding from each of its eyes and its nose hole. It also had four gigantic candles sticking out of the base, each burning with a single flame the size of a large house. Hovering above this macabre citadel were three black globes, apparently unsupported.

Kid sighed in happy satisfaction.

"Father's school is truly a beautiful building," he commented. "Everything about it is perfectly symmetrical, do you see?"

Italy nodded, too nervous to speak. This place was owned by the boy's _father?!_ And earlier, he had said he was a grim reaper…

What the hell was going on? What was this place? Who were these people? Could he truly trust them or were they going to hold him prisoner and beat him violently for information after lulling him into a false sense of security? And worst of all: what if they didn't let him have any pasta?

Kid manoeuvred the flying skateboard until it was hovering over the cobblestoned courtyard and landed in front of the imposing building which was supposedly a school. Just like that, the flight was done.

Italy fell off the skateboard and landed heavily on the ground.

"Italy!" was the triple-voiced cry of the weapons-meister team. Kid sucked Beelzebub back up into his arm and Liz and Patty retook human form to kneel down beside the fallen nation.

The man in question looked up at the DWMA and allowed himself a small smile.

"It's so pretty," he muttered.

Kid pinched his brow, a motion second only to the facepalm in the ultimate expression of exasperation, accompanied by a small, private mutter of: "I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with you…"

He stood up and straightened his suit.

"Liz, Patty, I'd appreciate it if you could accompany him back to Gallows Manor," he commanded.

"Why the hell do we have to do it?" asked Liz. "Get him there yourself, you lazy little snob!"

"I can't," said Kid. "I need to talk to my father about this. About _him_. You can go to bed once you get there, but I don't think I'll take very long."

With nothing more to say, he turned away and walked towards the skull-covered building, disappearing between the teeth of the huge stone face which concealed the entrance.

"Ve~ is he always like that?" asked Italy.

"Sadly, yes," said Liz as she and Patty helped him stand up. They also caught him as he almost fell over again.

"Boy, you really are sleepy!" said the younger of the two sisters. "We better get you back home before you fall down all these stairs and die!"

They started to lead him down the steps and away from the DWMA.

Italy later considered that falling down the stairs would have taken a very, very long time.

* * *

**In case you were wondering, that bit at the beginning? That's deliberate. *snigger snigger* Innuendo is hilarious, is it not? Except for the bit about Kid's ass. He has one _nice_ ass and I'm not afraid to say that. And if you're wondering who Silvio Berlusconi is, just watch a British satirical news program at any point in the previous decade. Chances are there'll be jokes about him. _Mock the Week _and _Russell Howard's Good News_ (shameless promotion) tend to have the best.**

**Bewertungen sind herzlich willkommen!**


	4. Pasta For Breakfast?

Sleeping naked was something Italy always did, always had done, and would probably do for the rest of his life. He didn't know why this was so: maybe it was an Italian thing, since his brother did it too. It was always the case – well, except for when Germany yelled at him to put some clothes on. And he was always blushing like an angry tomato when he did that, which was kinda weird.

Maybe this was why he was woken up: the added warmth from the extra layers of fabric was making him too hot to stay asleep. Maybe it was the sudden lack of the light which had been there when he had first drifted off. That was strange. He'd always taken siestas in the afternoon, but they only ever lasted an hour. What could have happened to make him so tired that he would sleep right into the night? Oh no, Germany was going to be _soooo _mad at him…

And then he remembered. Germany wasn't there. Italy wasn't even in Europe anymore. Just earlier that day he had flown all the way across the ocean, so now he was somewhere in America's place. He hoped the 'heroic' nation wouldn't mind too much for the intrusion.

He curiously felt the surface he was lying on. It was suede: that soft fabric used for couches which always made his hands feel dry, which was annoying. And now that he thought of it, whatever this was did feel very couch shaped-

-and there was a cartoonish skull about a foot from his face.

It cocked to one side with an unnerving _boing_.

"Wow," it said in a squeaky voice. "You know, you're way younger than I thought you'd be."

To say Italy screamed would quite possibly have been the understatement of the century. To say that his shrieks could probably have been heard on the moon may also be a slight miscalculation. No matter: he screamed. That would have been all there was to it if he didn't also scramble backwards, fall off the couch and curl up as tightly as he could in the nearest corner, there being no tomato crates readily available at the moment.

"What's going on?" he yelled, producing one of the many white flags he kept hidden within his clothing. "Who are you? What are you? Please don't hurt me, I was already badly hurt and I don't remember how! And I don't know why I don't remember how, just _please don't hurt me I don't want to die!_"

"Hey, hey, calm down!" The black figure raised a white, blocky foam-like hand defensively. "I'm not going to hurt you; I just wanted a little chat! You don't have to be afraid of me."

The blocky hand reached forward and picked up Italy by the back of his shirt with only a thumb and forefinger. This was a scene he was all too familiar with: the major difference was that rather than an incensed German soldier holding him with his feet several inches off the ground, it was now a tall spiky black… thing with a skull mask where the face was probably supposed to be and big blocky hands which seemed to sprout out of nowhere.

"Seriously though," it said, (presumably) examining him critically, "how old are you supposed to be? Twenty? Nineteen? Heck, you look young enough to be a student at the Academy!" It started to swing Italy back and forth, and the young man started to whimper in fear.

"Hey now, stop crying," the figure continued in its squeaky voice. "Didn't I already say I don't want to hurt you?"

"Father, what's going on?"

Italy looked around as Kid walked into the room with a face of concern. His eyes widened slightly as he surveyed the slightly awkward scene before he tutted in annoyance.

"Italy, are you ever going to stop whimpering?" he asked. "It's really beginning to get on my nerves."

"Oh come on, now, Kiddo!" the black squeaky thing said to the teenager. "Couldn't you be a bit more tactful? I would think it obvious that the poor little guy's scared out of his mind!"

"He's scared of _you_," Kid pointed out. "I think it would be best if you could put him down."

Italy nodded.

"Alright then," the black figure replied, and Italy was set on the ground where he froze, too terrified to move.

"Sorry if I scared you, little fella!" it continued, raising its blocky hand in a peace symbol. "I didn't want to wake you up because you just looked so _precious_ when you were sound asleep! You remind me so much of Kid when he was only a little boy. He used to make the most adorable noises, just like you!"

The now confused Italy looked over at Kid, and started to laugh.

"What?" asked Kid. "What's so funny?"

"Your face!" cried Italy. "You're glowing just like a ripe tomato, you're so red and funny looking!"

"You'd be embarrassed too if your father was talking about your childhood," said Kid objectively.

Italy stopped laughing abruptly. His baffled eyes flew from the well-dressed boy to the eerie black figure, from the eerie black figure to the well-dressed boy, and over and over again until he was shaking his head as though someone had just told him there were spiders in his hair.

"…" he squeaked.

"Is something wrong?" asked the black figure, cocking its head – no, its entire upper half – to one side. "You look like you've just seen a ghost!"

"Dad," said Kid in a rather deadpan tone, "I should think it infinitely more likely that he's just seen a grim reaper."

"…" Italy repeated.

He started to slowly back away.

"Where are you going?" the black figure asked, and bounced over to him with disturbing _boing_ noises. "Don't worry! There's nothing for you to be afraid of, Italy – is it okay if I call you Italy?"

There wasn't going to be any escape, was there? His fingers sought solace by curling automatically around the white flag once more. Giving up: that seemed like the best option right now. Yeah, surrendering always worked wonders. He often wondered why none of the other countries seemed to realise that.

"Uh," he said, unsure what to say, "_si_. That is, um, yes. Sir. Please don't hurt me!"

"Oh, you don't have to go through the formalities," the black thing said (perhaps reassuringly, but Italy couldn't tell because he was too scared). "You can just call me Lord Death. Or Death, if you prefer. I take it you're already rather well acquainted with my son?"

"Ve~ I guess," said Italy. "Does pulling my hair count?"

Lord Death gasped in shock.

"Kid, I'm surprised at you!" he chided the younger reaper. "I would have thought that you, of all people, should know better!"

"But… but…" Kid stammered. "But his hair! That curl, it's asymmetrical! Father, I had to try to do something about it, but no matter how hard I tugged, it wouldn't come out! It was as though it wasn't so much hair as a permanent part of his body!"

If the black spectre had a chin, he would probably be cupping it right now, considering how his squared fingers were arranged.

"Kid," he said slowly, "how much do you know about Italy's kind, exactly?"

"Apart from that rather annoyingly brief explanation you gave me?" Kid said bluntly. "Next to nothing."

Lord Death beckoned his son closer and whispered something in his ear. Italy couldn't hear what it was, but it caused Kid's face to once again flash bright red, as though he were turning into a scarlet strobe light. He cleared his throat awkwardly and stepped forward, standing in the nation's shadow.

"In light of what my father has just explained to me," he said, keeping his eyes firmly fixed anywhere except Italy's face, "it seems only right for me to apologise for attempting to, shall we say, even you up. I have been told, mostly by my partners, that I let my… _personal issues_ affect my judgement, and I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable in any way."

Italy wasn't quite sure how to respond. Kid definitely _sounded_ sincere, but it wasn't easy to tell. He waited for the teenager to continue, but apparently there was nothing more to be said.

His curl had been pulled on before, but that was an accident. Germany hadn't known what they did when he first did it, so it was excusable, and he preferred not to think about what had happened with Romano. It had taken almost an hour for them to get untangled. Romano had spat out a brief, sarcastic thank-you in Germany's direction, called him a potato bastard and tried to deliver a vicious uppercut, but Germany had dodged and gone home with nary another word.

However, this boy was neither Romano nor Germany, even though he was showing similarities to both. He seemed as though he'd be nice once Italy got to know him better. And anyway, he was so small and adorable with that little suit of his! How harmful could he possibly be?

And he had tended to Italy's wounds. He was worth a shot at least.

"Ve~ that's okay!" he said, putting his uninjured hand on Kid's shoulder. "I'm sure that if we tried, we could be really good friends!"

"Maybe," said Kid as he removed the hand, "but I wouldn't bet your life on it."

"Excellent!" Lord Death cried, clapping his hands (?) together in joy. "Isn't everything so much better when we're all getting along? Speaking of which, I hope those two young ladies of yours are behaving themselves, Kid."

"We're doing well enough," said Kid. "There are a few minor hiccups here and there-"

"You mean like how the older one keeps calling you an OCD nutcase?" asked Italy innocently.

The silence was so thick that you couldn't even cut it with a razor.

"Yes," Kid said eventually. "Something like that."

He covered his mouth and yawned.

"Aw, is my little Kiddo sleepy?" asked Lord Death in an adoring voice.

"Please don't, Dad," the boy groaned. "I'm not a little boy anymore, so you don't have to be like that."

He yawned again.

"But I guess I am rather tired," he said. "I should probably go to bed."

"Before you do, Kid," said Lord Death, "can I speak to you in private for a moment? I'm afraid our European friend here has brought up a rather crucial matter I've been meaning to discuss with you."

Kid looked at Italy, who cocked his head to one side in curious confusion, and then back to his father.

"Alright then," he said. His father opened the room's door and allowed him out before turning back to Italy.

"Great to meet you, Italy!" he said cheerfully. "See you later, alligator!"

And with that, the two reapers were gone, and Italy was left alone with his thoughts. He sat back down on the couch, cupped his jaw in his right hand and rested his elbow on his knee.

'Ve~ everything's just getting weirder and weirder by the minute,' he thought. 'I thought that Kid was maybe mean and a little misguided, but now he's a grim reaper? And not just that, but his father is Death! Kid is Death Junior! He's Death the… ve~ I would say Kid, but that's already his name!'

He looked down again at his bandaged arm, only to see that it was now covered up by what was left of blue and black sleeves.

'It's so torn up,' he thought. 'Ve~ Germany is going to be so mad at me when he sees what a mess I've made of my uniform.'

Germany…

It felt like forever since he had seen the tall Aryan man, with his stern eyes and his hair which was always slicked back off his face. Even though it had only been a day or so, Italy was already missing him like crazy. He rubbed his forehead, wondering if he could work his memories back into his mind. They had been in the woods and they were doing… something.

What was it? Training? No, probably not: if they had been training, Italy would have been wearing that sailor uniform. Maybe they had just been talking, like friends always did. But if so, why were they in the woods? Privacy, perhaps?

Maybe – and Italy allowed himself a mischievous little smile for this – maybe they were… _kissing_. It was certainly possible: after all, it wasn't too long ago that they actually went on a date together (although it was a bit of a disaster) and-

"_**WHAT?!**_"

Oh yeah. Kid and Lord Death were talking. What about, though? Italy walked over to the door and pressed his ear against the woodwork.

"…for all four of you."

"It's not a matter of space, Father, it's a matter of _why the hell do you think this would be a good idea?! _I'm grateful for you explaining what I asked about, but surely he'd feel more at home back in Europe? You know, back where he belongs?"

Italy quickly realised they were talking about him. He tried to look through the keyhole, but discovered that it would be rather difficult considering that there wasn't one. So instead he listened at the crack between the door and its frame, wondering if he was going to get into trouble for eavesdropping.

He only heard silence. Then mumbling. Had they caught on? Did they know he was listening in?

Something else caught his attention: something which was… off. He walked over to the window, looked out, and had to shove his fist into his mouth to keep himself from screaming the place down.

This was not the night he remembered. His whole life the sky had been deep blue, verging on black, but somehow it had become a darkish shade of purple which was only slightly deeper than the strangely stringy clouds which drifted across and hid some of the stars, which Italy noticed had become dimmer and less visible than he recalled.

But then there was the moon. The magnificent, bulbous, silvery-white-and-grey orb which had hung in the sky for his entire life was gone, and what hovered in its place was like something out of a bad dream you might get after eating a grilled cheese sandwich before bed. It was a massive yellow crescent with a big, spike-like nose, huge round eyes and a tremendous, nightmarish grin that shivered in a never ending snigger. And if he looked closely, Italy could have sworn that there was blood leaking from between its teeth, which were gigantic like shining white tombstones in the sky.

He felt a scream coming on. It was growing and expanding and burning like a hot coal in the centre of his chest. He pressed his hand hard over his mouth, keeping it shut as tight as possible so that all that came out was a small, strangled-sounding squeal like a dying cat.

With the pressure more or less released, Italy sat down heavily on the floor and tried to shake some sense back into his head.

'What's going on?' he asked himself desperately as though expecting an answer. 'Where am I? What is this place? I mean, I know it's called Death City, but why is it called that? Why is everything here Death? Lord Death, Death the Kid, Death City, _why_? Is everybody in this place a goth or an emo or related to Russia in some way? Or are they just lame people who want to be goths but actually just wear weird clothes and listen to weird music and generally annoy people? I don't like this, I want to go home! I WANT TO GO HOME!'

He looked up, worried that someone may have heard that last part. Satisfied that all was still (almost) quiet, he curled up into a ball and started rocking back and forth.

'But what if the thing that hurt me is still there?' his thoughts informed him not-so-helpfully. 'What if… What if it got Germany? Or Romano or Spain or France? They could all be dying over there and I wouldn't know or be able to do anything about it! What if it singles them out and hunts them down one by one while I'm stuck over here?'

Images began to race wildly through the forefront of his mind – horrifying visions of everyone he knew at the mercy of an unseen, terrifying monster which struck them down one at a time and violently ripped their souls from their lifeless bodies – and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

He was so preoccupied with his imagination going into paranoia overdrive that he barely even noticed the door opening behind him or the young man now standing right behind him.

He said something, but Italy didn't register it properly. It wasn't what he wanted to hear. What he wanted to hear was Germany, telling him to calm down and stop being such a wuss, and then telling him that there wasn't anything to be afraid of and that he should stop crying...

"Italy?"

But it didn't come. Only the harsh, unfeeling voice of the young grim reaper was what he heard. He looked up into the cold, two-toned eyes of the boy young enough to be his little brother.

"Ve~ what did you say?" he asked.

Kid rubbed his eyes in exasperation.

"I swear you're going to give me grey hair," he said. "I'll repeat what I just said: Father and I were talking just now and he thinks it may be for the best if you stay in Death City while we wait for your arm to heal, because people are sure to ask questions if you go back home wrapped in bandages and barely able to use your own hand. You can even stay in Gallows Manor with me if you like, but it's up to you. What do you say?"

Considering the point which had just been brought up, it wasn't very easy to say no.

"Okay."

Italy spoke so quietly that it was almost a whisper.

"You can sleep in this room tonight," said Kid. "I'll bring you a blanket."

He left again.

'He's so cold,' thought Italy. 'I mean, his hands are like ice, but not just that: he's so mean and frosty and… what's a word Mr Austria would use? A fancy word, like insensitive or abrasive. And his partners seem like they hate him, so why do they stay with him? Why does he put up with them? Why is he so annoyed by my curl?'

In any case, he was too tired to start bombarding questions around like hand grenades. And he didn't want to sleep in his clothes either, so he started to take off his uniform.

'Ve~ I don't think it can be fixed,' he thought. 'It's covered in blood as well as torn up. And that's _my_ blood. If I wasn't a country… I would definitely be dead from losing too much blood. But blood's red and my uniform is- used to be blue. Shouldn't it be purple now? It's this weird dirty brown colour instead. Ve~ never mind.'

By this point he was left with only his yellow boxers and the metal cross around his neck. He curled his fingers around it (more gently this time) and rubbed the cold iron with his thumb.

'It's okay,' he thought with a smile. 'I'm sure Germany's alright. He's one of the toughest countries in the world, after all! I just have to wait a little longer and he'll definitely come for me. He's always come for me in the past: what's one more little rescue when you think about it?'

Reassurance guaranteed, he tugged off his boxers just as the door opened, heralding Kid's return.

"Nights in the desert can get as low as 5° Celsius, so in case you get cold I brought you two blankets instead of one _oh fucking hell._"

When Italy looked around it was to see Kid holding out a couple of blankets at arms' length, keeping his face fixed firmly on what was over his shoulder. This could easily be explained by the fact that the young man was now standing in the middle of the room dressed only in a metal cross pendant and his birthday suit.

"Italy," Kid said slowly, still facing in the opposite direction, "would you mind telling me why. The hell. You're naked?"

"Ve~ I always sleep naked!" Italy explained briefly. He took the blankets, wrapped them around his body and laid back down on the couch saying, "It's safe to look now!"

Kid looked around and saw him lying down comfortably with only his head showing. His eyes were closed – why were his eyes always closed? – and he was giggling happily. Then he yawned, but quickly resumed laughing.

"It's strange," he said, "I didn't know how cold it was until I was wrapped up! Ve~ why is it cold? I thought deserts were super-hot!"

"It's not very important right now," said Kid, making a note to burn those blankets and sanitise the couch at the first opportunity. "Try to get some sleep. I know I'm going to bed, and you'll take some time to get over jet lag."

"Ve~ how come you don't have it?"

"I'm a Grim Reaper," Kid replied. "Normal rules tend to be put on hold for the likes of my father and I. In any case, good night."

"_Buon notte_."

With one last look at the nation as he settled down to sleep, Kid proceeded upstairs to his (perfectly symmetrical) bedroom.

He stopped off in the kitchen and grabbed a small bottle on the way.

* * *

It was the light of the sun streaming through the uncovered window which roused Kid from his slumber the next morning. He pulled out his pillow and slapped it over his face, but all that did was let in a little less light. He could tell there wasn't any way he would get to sleep until the end of the day.

This was disappointing, to say the least. He had hoped to not be waking up at all, and yet the clock above his door was helpfully reminding him that it was 8:03 in the morning.

He fished around in one of his two identical bedside cabinets until he found his notebook. Then he began to write.

_After double strength sleeping pills failed to have any kind of effect on my body, soul or brain, I decided to experiment with triple strength instead, once again consuming as much of the bottle as I could within the short amount of time allowed by the pill's effects. Unfortunately, I have awoken at exactly the same point in time as I do on every other day where I do not consume sleeping pills. In other words, even triple strength does not have any effect on my body. I am beginning to wonder if drugs of any kind are resisted, taking into account the repeated (and again, futile) attempts at dying the stripes in my hair, and whether further attempts would prove to be fruitless endeavours. Perhaps I should discontinue this – as with heat-related damage – and move on to experiments with negative temperatures instead._

He put the notebook and pen away, gathered up the pills still strewn on his duvet into the bottle, screwed on the lid and threw the bottle into one of the two identical bins which stood next to the door to his room.

Wait.

What was that smell? Was someone cooking?

Kid's curiosity temporarily overrode his OCD (_temporarily_) and he left his room without changing out of his pyjamas for the first time in at least ten years. He sniffed the air: there was steam, the aroma of cooking wheat, and the sound of bubbling water was on the very edge of hearing.

Also, was that singing? It sounded like the kind of song a child might sing while dancing and running through a field of flowers.

Yes, that was definitely the smell of cooking.

As Kid drew closer to the kitchen, he was able to make out the lyrics of the song more clearly.

"…a circle, that's the Earth. Draw a circle, that's the Earth…"

'Is that Italy?' thought Kid. 'Why is- what's he cooking?'

"…draw a circle, that's the Earth, I am Hetalia!"

Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Kid pushed the already-ajar door open and surveyed the scene.

Italy, oblivious to the teenaged reaper's entrance, was dancing around a bubbling pot, stirring expertly (with his right hand, Kid noted – his left hung almost uselessly at his side) while dancing on the balls of his feet and providing the source of the joyful tune.

What surrounded him was like something out of a nightmare. There were dirty bowls and kitchen utensils stacked untidily next to the sink and the work bench was nothing short of filthy. A big bag of flour and an open carton of eggs sat like tall islands in a sea of the aforementioned white powder, which was also clinging to a used rolling pin which was half hanging off the counter. It was all Kid could do not to throw up violently right then and there in the doorway.

'Well,' Kid thought, noting the young man's ragged and bloodstained uniform which he was still wearing, 'at least he's not dancing around naked. For now.'

"Ah, the world us," Italy crooned, "can be seen with the stroke of a single brus- oh hi Kid!"

His high-pitched voice snapped Kid out of his stunned stupor in an instant. Trying to remain as calm as humanly (grim reaper-ly?) possible, Kid tried to look him in the eye, but couldn't because they were closed.

'They look like little equals symbols,' he thought. 'How does he even know where he's going?'

"Italy," he said, taking care to shield his frustration, "what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?"

"Ve~ I looked everywhere, but you didn't have any pasta," Italy explained, "so I thought if I couldn't find any I would just make some! Would you like to try it?"

Kid took several deep breaths and clenched and unclenched his fists.

"But what could compel you to get up, get dressed in your-" what was a word that could be used here without sounding impolite? "-_damaged_ uniform for the soul purpose of cooking pasta? Not to mention the fact that it's just past eight o'clock in the morning and you've quite clearly been up for some time already!"

"Well," said Italy calmly, "you see, Germany was always getting up super-early so that we could do training together, and I guess it kinda got stuck in my head. I'm just making pasta 'coz I like pasta, ve~ I hope you don't mind."

But what did Germany (whoever it was) getting up have to do with anything?

"Also, I'm wearing my uniform 'coz they're really the only clothes I have."

That was justifiable: there hadn't exactly been time to pack after all. But there were still innumerable questions just waiting to spew forth from Kid's mouth.

"What does Germany getting up early have to do with you getting up early?" he inquired.

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Italy. "We sleep together!"

Kid paused. He had been formulating his next question, but this alarmingly nonchalant declaration had him stumped somewhat.

Italy looked at his face and giggled.

"Ve~ not in _that_ way, of course," he explained. "I just like to get into his bed when I have nightmares. And when my bed feels too cold. And when I get lonely. I get lonely a lot."

'I imagine you do,' said the sarcastic portion of Kid's mind.

He turned the tap on and started to wash all of the used bowls and things.

"If this is ever going to be a peaceful relationship," he said as he grabbed a washcloth or two, "I'll need you to know what it means to be clean and tidy. It's perfectly alright for you to cook, but you _have_ to clean up after yourself. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

"Ve~ you sound just like Germany," Italy commented. "You look like him too, except you're not tall and blonde and stuff. Pasta's done!"

Later on, Kid had to admit: the pasta was rather delicious.

* * *

**And thus, the plot is established. I should probably say that this is _not_ going to be a Kid/Italy fic. Italy is a grown man (as unlikely as it may seem) and Kid is... well, a kid. Also, I dislike crossover fics where the characters from the separate franchises are best buddies from the very second they meet. They have differences! Differences that will cause conflict! It's very likely that said conflict will be resolved, but still, I prefer it when people take the completely different personalities into consideration.**

**I had one hell of a lot of fun writing Lord Death. Can you believe he shares an English VA with Hohenheim from FMA:B? Look it up if you don't believe me! Freaky as hell, right? And yes, I know what Kid's doing to himself. Don't sweat it, it's part of the story and will be resolved.**

**Comentarios son bienvenidos!**


	5. In Town With The Thompsons

"So what do you think?"

"Ve~ well it's… different."

This was the most accurate, if brief, way to describe it: different. Looking at himself in the mirror, Italy thought that he looked like a completely different person. He had grown so used to wearing military clothing and uniforms that he had almost forgotten what he looked like in 'street' clothes.

He had been concerned about this shop because the jeans he was now wearing were ripped at the knees, but apparently it was the current fashion to look as though a person had been in a rather clean bike stack. At least, that was what Liz and Patty had told him. Hard to believe, but it didn't make his bandages look so out of place anymore. And he couldn't remember the last time he had worn such comfortable shoes as these sneakers.

It was the shirt which was a little unnerving. It was vivid red, the kind of red which could only be created artificially and was normally reserved for sugary frozen treats. There was a white circle in the centre – it was like an inversion of Japan's flag in that respect – and laid over this circle, in action-comic-style yellow letters, was the word BAZINGA!

What did that word mean, anyway?

"If you don't like it, we can always try somewhere else," Liz pointed out.

"Nah," said Patty, "he just needs a cool pair of shades, that's all!"

She slid a pair of sunglasses onto Italy's nose. The lenses were huge and the frames were vivid pink. There was a little artificial moustache hanging off them on thin pink chains. Italy couldn't help but smile – Romano would absolutely _love_ these sunglasses.

"Hey, you like these?" asked Patty, whisking them away. "Try _these_ out for size!"

This pair was basically the same, but the frames were white rather than pink and instead of a moustache it was a cat nose complete with whiskers. 'Maybe I should buy a pair of these ones for Greece,' Italy thought.

"Maybe you should try a shirt with longer sleeves," said Liz. "Something that'll cover up your bandages. Death City isn't renowned for a particular uniform, but you'll still stick out like an unpainted fingernail if you parade all of that stuff around the place."

She poked Italy gently in the shoulder, causing him to wince.

"Sorry," she said insincerely.

Italy turned back to the mirror and stared, somewhat bamboozled, at his whiskered reflection.

"What does Bazinga mean?" he asked.

"I have no idea," said Patty, "but why don't you try this one?"

She held up a white shirt – one of those which were made to resemble a short sleeved shirt over a long sleeved shirt – and the sleeves in question were grey. The white part had printed on it, in large blocky black letters, 'I Got 99 Souls But A WITCH Ain't One.'

"Ha! I like that!" cried Liz. "That's clever! What do you say, Italy? Wanna try it on? It looks like your size."

"I don't understand what it means, but okay," said Italy. He tugged off the shirt he was already wearing, once again choosing not to use the dressing rooms provided (which made Liz turn away with a blush and Patty giggle childishly) and pulled on the second shirt. He had a little trouble with his left arm, but the girls were more than willing to help him get it into the sleeve.

"Ve~ it still really hurts," he commented.

"What did you expect?" asked Liz. "Did you think you could have an arm which looked like you'd tried to fist a wood chipper and _not_ have it hurting like hell? Seriously, you looked like some victim out of a schlock horror movie."

"Actually no," said Patty. "That last bit doesn't count because he's still alive, right?"

"That's a point," Liz replied.

The two sisters watched and waited as Italy stared blankly at his own reflection, completely lost for words.

Never in his life did he ever think he'd look so… _ordinary. _If he were to meet any other nations right now, or even just pass them in the street, they wouldn't even look twice at him. Heck, they probably wouldn't even notice him. In his uniform he had looked like a slightly out of place young man, not the kind of person who would ever join the army, but now – now he resembled a teenage boy, painfully normal, the kind who was bogged down by the weight of his own averageness and spent all his time in a library or under a tree pondering the many meanings of the phrase 'the sky was blue'.

"Hmm," Liz said thoughtfully, "you still look like you're missing something."

"Wha?! I do?" Italy cried confusedly. "But I thought this would be enough! Don't I look ordinary enough already?"

"Not quite," said Patty. She grabbed a scarf which looked more like a shawl than anything else and wrapped it loosely around his neck with it hanging down over his chest.

"There," she said. "Now you look like a hipster!"

"Patty, don't say things like that," Liz admonished her sister. "We're supposed to be _cheering him up_, remember?"

"Yeah, but now he looks even cuter!" cried Patty, and she wrapped the hapless Italy in another big hug (why did people always want to hug him? He didn't get it). "But why don't you have your eyes open?"

"I've been wondering about that too," Liz confessed. "Why don't you open your eyes, Italy?"

"Ve~ I dunno," said Italy. "I just go around with them only open enough for me to see, it's something I do. No big deal, right?"

"Oh, come on," Patty whined. "I bet your eyes are really pretty! Open them!"

"Huh? But aren't I pretty enough as it is?"

"Just think about how much prettier you'll be and open them," said Liz, her tone suggesting that this wasn't a request. "Goddamn, it's like talking to a stupid four-year-old!"

"It's just- the last time I opened my eyes all the way, Germany shut them again," Italy explained. "Ve~ he said something about me looking too 'limpid'."

"What does that even mean?" asked Patty. "Seriously, I have no idea."

"I don't either," Liz almost shouted, "so will you open your eyes already?"

It was all Italy could do to prevent himself from cowering. He'd never been frightened by a young girl before (unless Ms Belarus counted as a young girl, in which case that had happened plenty of times). Especially not such pretty girls as Liz and Patty, who had been kind enough buy him new clothes to replace his ruined uniform. Although he had to admit that their attitudes were anything but pretty.

Nevertheless, they frightened him. It was probably best to comply.

"O-Okay," he said, and opened his eyes.

The whole world held its breath as Italy stood there, gazing straight ahead and smiling faintly in an attempt to hide his fear. Liz and Patty stared blankly at the twin caramel-coloured orbs which sparkled with the happiness of one who is in touch with his inner child.

"Wow…" Patty whispered.

"I know," Liz murmured back, "they're… _beautiful._"

Beautiful? Really? They-they actually meant it?! Maybe he should open his eyes more often! Italy felt as though he was going to explode with joy. His smile grew wider with his pride and his eyes glittered like little golden-brown stars. It was almost painful to look at.

"Too beautiful!" the sisters cried as one, and slapped their hands over his face.

* * *

"Sorry about that," said Liz.

"We didn't mean to hit you that hard, honest!" said Patty, almost pleadingly.

"Ve~ that's okay," said Italy, rubbing his forehead, "it doesn't hurt so much anymore."

Patty starting giggling, practically out of nowhere.

"What's so funny?" asked Liz.

"Sis," said her younger sister, "don't you think Italy looks kinda like a raccoon with those red marks on his face and all?"

"Yeah, he does," said Liz, examining the poor man's face. "An angry, yet somehow nervous raccoon."

"I'm nervous because I'm afraid you're going to hit me again," said Italy, shying away from the taller of the two girls.

"Just keep your eyes closed," Liz informed him. "Or at least open enough for you to choose what flavour you want."

Italy had admittedly been a little disappointed to find that in all of Death City, there was not a single shop which sold gelato. It was only the Italian version of ice cream, so why couldn't it be sold anywhere? He couldn't be too upset though: apparently this Death Robbins place was rather good. Hopefully it wouldn't give him a stomach ache: Italy loved gelato, but gelato didn't love him. But it did love Romano, which was kinda confusing because Romano was more into tomatoes, and through careful experimenting Italy had discovered that tomato gelato, even though it rhymed, was a VERY BAD IDEA.

It was such a bad idea that it had to be expressed through capital letters.

"Ve~ by any chance do they serve pasta?" he asked.

"Pasta?" Not for the first time, Liz was confused. "Italy, this is an ice cream shop, why would they serve pasta?"

"Oh," Italy said quietly, "I guess I'll just have strawberry then."

"I want raspberry sherbet!" shouted Patty with a cheerful punch to the air.

"And you'll get raspberry sherbet if you can keep your ass under control for more than five seconds," Liz said with a sigh. "Personally, I can't choose between the banana nut fudge and rocky road."

"Oh, just get chocolate chip," said Patty, "you always get chocolate chip!"

"What flavour does Kid usually get, ve~?" Italy asked, more out of curiosity than anything meaningful or important.

"Vanilla," Liz said flatly. "Don't ask why."

"Okay," said Italy, deciding not to pursue the issue any further.

They paid for their ice cream and left the shop. Liz led the way to a rather pretty fountain where they could sit and eat. It was quiet and peaceful, and the only other sound apart from them was the steady trickle of water squirting into the pool below it.

"So Italy," said Liz as they licked their respective ice creams, "what do you think of Death City so far?"

"Ve~ I haven't actually seen much of it to be honest," he replied, and looked up at the palace-like building atop the massive mound which was Death City. "I have to ask, though: is that really a school? It looks like a massive castle that you might find in a big book of faerie tales, the kind which are supposed to stop kids going into the woods at night and stuff."

"Yeah, it does kinda look like that, doesn't it?" asked Liz. "I was worried it was some kind of haunted castle when I first saw it. Hell, I half expected all the classes to be all mummies and werewolves!"

"And vampires?" Patty suggested.

"Don't be a dumbass," said Liz. "Why the hell would a vampire want to go to school? They'd just stay young, so they'd do the same shit over and over again and it would get ridiculous! But seriously, I'm glad. Ghosts give me the creeps."

"What's it like up there, ve~?" asked Italy. "Are the teachers really mean, or really nice? Or are they mean at first but kinda nice once you get to know them?"

"How am I supposed to know?" said Liz. "Patty and I aren't students."

"Wha?! Why not? I thought you were able to turn into guns, and didn't Kid say that the school was for people who could turn into weapons? I mean, surely you're young enough to be students, aren't you?"

"Kid's a Grim Reaper, and he's also our meister. He doesn't need to attend the Academy 'coz his dad runs the place and eventually Kid will take over. He says that learning how to be Death is more important than learning how to fight, and he's already brilliant at that somehow, and also there's this: weapons need a meister to be able to fight. Patty and I can't be meisters for the simple fact that we're weapons and… look, it's complicated, alright? Long story short, we just don't need to go. Get it?"

"_Si_, I think so… maybe."

For a while they just sat there, licking their ice creams and enjoying the perpetually sunny weather.

Speaking of which, it looked as though the sun had gone the same way as the moon. It was no longer a burning orb of blinding whiteness, but not a… a… the best way Italy could put it was a 'great big ball of scariness'. A gigantic, dirty yellowish-orange _thing_ covered in massive spikes with a freaky looking face and a grin almost as nightmarish as that of the moon, if not more because this one was quite openly roaring with laughter.

Plus, there were some clouds which were actually drifting _behind_ it, meaning that it wasn't in space like the real sun but actually within the atmosphere, meaning that it might actually fall out and… do something that didn't warrant thinking about.

"Hey, Liz?"

"Yeah, what is it now?"

"Ve~ why do the sun and moon look so weird in this place? It's like they suddenly changed into something completely different. I saw the moon last night and it really freaked me out, and now the sun has changed too and it's really creepy!"

"You mean you noticed a change too?"

Italy nodded.

"Thank GOD!" Liz practically yelled. "I thought I had just gone crazy and Patty went crazier!"

"Hmm, what was that?" said Patty, who had been carefully drawing giraffes with water on the stone of the fountain. It hadn't been a successful endeavour because they always dried up before she could finish them.

"Italy noticed the sun and the moon change!" cried Liz as though it were the most monumental revelation in the history of man.

"What, really?" asked Patty. "Phew! I guess we didn't go crazy after all! Unless we did and now Italy's gone crazy too, in which case we've all gone completely nutty and should probably get some professional help as quickly as possible."

"What are you two talking about?" asked Italy, who was by this point about as flabbergasted as a personification of a country could get.

"Growing up in New York City, the sun and the moon were just that: a sun and a moon," Liz explained. "A great big ball of blinding fire during the day, a cold lump of white stone during the night. But after we got picked up by Kid and moved to Death City, they both changed into these great big… things. Kid said something about his father affecting the minds of the people living here or whatever. The whole sound soul in a sound… skin and sound… cuticles, I dunno."

"Uh, I'm pretty sure it was a sound mind and sound body," Patty piped up.

"Patty, I just have no idea, okay?" said Liz. "This whole place is weird enough already without all this creepy soul stuff. If we wanted to learn about that, we'd be in that school right now sleeping on a desk. That's what people do in school, right? Sleep on desks?"

"Ve~ I have no idea."

Liz very nearly dropped her ice cream.

"What do you mean, you have no idea?" she demanded. "Surely you- have you never gone to school?"

"I grew up very differently to normal people," said Italy in a matter-of-fact voice. "Ve~ people were always fighting over me and trying to take control over me after my grandpa died, but the only one who actually got me was Mr Austria. I grew up as a servant in his house and he thought I was a girl."

"You were WHAT?"

"It was probably because Ms Hungary dressed me up in her clothes."

"You wore _girl's_ clothes?" cried Liz. "Do you have any idea how weird that is for a kid? Why the hell would you be a cross dresser?"

"I didn't know anything was wrong with it!" Italy protested in complete innocence. "And besides, it was nice to feel the breeze on my-"

"Okay!" Liz shouted over him, raising her hands to her ears just in case. "I get the point, you had a pretty messed up life. Everybody fought over you all the time and you wore a dress."

"Ve~ not all the time," said Italy, "but it did happen quite a lot. I was lucky to be living with Mr Austria because most of the other countries my age had to grow up on their own. England had it really rough 'coz he was always fighting with Big Brother France for no reason other than to fight with Big Brother France. Russia was getting bullied by that nasty General Winter guy. And as for Holy Roman Em… pire…"

He trailed off, a wistful and slightly sad expression on his face. Liz and Patty watched, unsure what to do, as tears pricked the corners of his eyes and his expression fell into one of heartbreak.

"Italy?" said Patty quietly. "You okay?"

The young man reached up and wiped his tears away with his thumb. Then he offered the girls a small, reassuring smile.

"Don't worry," he said, "I'm alright. It was just… ve~ painful memories."

"Trust me," said Liz, "we know how you feel. We had to fend for ourselves in the urban jungle you know as New York ever since we were tiny. It wasn't our fault our mom didn't want anything to do with us."

"You grew up on the streets?!" cried Italy.

"Well, duh!" Patty replied. "There's hardly gonna be a hotel that'll let in a couple of babies, especially ones that can turn into guns! And anyway, if we were all cushy when we were kids, we wouldn't have become the Devils of Brooklyn!"

Italy froze at this.

"The Devils of Brooklyn?" he said. "You mean _you_ were the girls America was getting all excited about because no-one could catch you?"

"I guess," said Liz with a shrug, "at least until we tried to mug a Grim Reaper. Things pretty much went downhill from there."

"Well, not _all_ downhill," Patty pointed out.

"That's true," Liz said, "we did get clothes that weren't out of a dumpster."

"And food which was actually either hot or cold and not just lukewarm and gross."

"We don't have to mug people just to get money."

"Money which we spent on cigarettes and crack."

"We don't have to run away from the police anymore."

"We don't have to sleep on doorsteps."

"Or in bus stations."

"Wow," said Italy, "was it really that bad?"

Liz and Patty fell silent.

"Kinda," they said as one.

And, as one, all three of them laughed again at the unison.

* * *

"Kid, we're back!"

Kid's expression was frosty at best as the motley crew walked through the door. Or perhaps a better phrasing would be this: completely and totally indifferent, with eyes like cold blank coins without the shine.

"Gee, don't roll out the welcome wagon," Liz deadpanned.

"You were gone for quite a while," said her meister. "It's nearly half past seven. Did it really take you that long to buy a new set of clothes?"

"Ve~ it was like this," said Italy. "We got these great new clothes which I'm wearing right now, and then Liz and Patty asked to open my eyes so I did, but they didn't like it so they put their hands over my eyes, but they did it too hard and it hurt. So we went to get ice cream to say sorry, but after we finished the ice cream we went to watch some kids from the academy playing basketball. Ve~ well, it was only two boys playing basketball while a couple of girls watched, and the girls were pretty but I couldn't talk to them 'coz they looked too young, and those boys had _really _crazy hair-"

"Italy."

"-I mean, one of them, the taller one who wore a headband like a girl for some reason, his hair was all spiky and white, but the other one had hair that was even spikier like a star shape and it was bright blue! I didn't even think you could get blue hair unless you dyed it! You can get people with white hair, Germany's big brother Prussia is like that even though it's a little bit darker than white and closer to grey really, but BLUE?!"

"_Italy._"

"You know, sometimes when I see Germany and Prussia together I can't help but wonder if it's actually the other way around and Germany's really the older brother, because Prussia acts kinda immature – well, _super_ immature – and he's all shouty and loud but Germany's shouty but he's all serious about it like he's serious about absolutely everything and he shouts and me a lot because I kinda slack off in my training sometimes and I don't like wearing clothes when I sleep-"

"ITALY!" the weapons and meister screamed.

Italy fell silent.

"Ve~ did you say something?" he asked innocently.

The teenagers around him started laughing. Well, Patty cackled raucously, Liz chuckled politely and Kid began to snigger a little, trying to conceal it behind a raised hand while Italy looked around, confused.

And he was even more confused when he noticed the bandages which were partially wrapped around Kid's hands and disappeared into his sleeves. They hadn't been there that morning. What had the young reaper been doing while they were on their little excursion?

"I'm assuming," said the boy, "that since you took so long, you already ate?"

"Actually no," Patty replied.

"Italy wanted to watch the sunset," said Liz with a shrug, "and somehow I just couldn't say no."

"Ve~ have you ever seen the weird face the sun makes when it's trying to stay awake?" asked Italy cheerfully. "It reminded me of Greece in the middle of every meeting, all drooly and snory and trying to stay awake but failing and falling asleep like a kitty!"

Kid's eye twitched.

"Why yes," he said, "I have noticed that towards the end of the day, the sun loses all semblance of symmetry and takes on the appearance of something utterly disgusting. More importantly, what would you girls – and Italy – like to eat for supper?"

"Can we have pizza?" Patty asked with the enthusiasm of a squirrel on Red Bull. "Please, please, _please?_"

"_Si_, I love pizza!" Italy added. "Not as much as I love pasta, but I still love pizza! Can we have pizza, Kid? Can we? Please?"

Kid's eyes flew from one pleading face to another, trying to work out what to say. He looked to Liz, hoping to find some kind of assistance, and was therefore disappointed when she frowned at him as if to say 'You dug yourself in, you can dig yourself out, jerkass.' He rubbed his forehead in exasperation.

"Patty, you should recall the last time we ordered pizza," he informed the younger of the two sisters, "and the time before that as well. Every single time we have pizza, there is not _anything symmetrical_ about what we receive. Rather than perfection, we get a note saying 'Shove it up your ass, you OCD nutcase' and the pepperoni was stuck to the roof of the box. On that note, I don't think it would be a very good idea."

"Awwwww!" whined Patty as though she were a five-year-old who had been denied chocolate sauce with their ice cream.

"Ve~ I could make it!"

All eyes turned to Italy and confusion once more entered the air.

"Are you serious?" asked Liz. "Is he _serious?_"

"Of course I'm serious!" said Italy. "I'm serious lots of times, but no-one really knows it. I'm a very good cook; you should know, you liked the pasta I made earlier, didn't you?"

"Pasta for breakfast and pizza for dinner: we are eating healthily, aren't we?" Kid said sarcastically. "Alright then, we can have pizza-"

"YAY!" Patty's cheer was so loud it almost raised the roof.

"-on one little condition."

In a flash, the young reaper's face was mere inches away from the now terrified nation, whom he prodded solidly on the nose.

"If you dare to make a single slip-up," the boy growled, "if so much as a Single. Strand. Of Cheese. Is out of place. I will personally unleash a kind of hell you could never conceive of in all of your days of existence. Do you understand that, you snivelling, cowardly, asymmetrical wretch?"

Whimpering in terror, Italy nodded slowly.

"Good," said Kid as he stepped away. "Then we have an understanding."

"Ve~ then let's go make some pizza!" he cried with all the vigour of a five-year-old who _did_ get chocolate sauce with their ice cream and apparently forgetting what had just happened, leaving Kid slightly stunned, to say the least.

'Um,' he thought, 'what just happened?'

He watched as Italy practically flew away in the direction of the kitchen – it hadn't taken him long to familiarise himself with his new surroundings, it seemed – followed closely by Liz and Patty, who were shouting topping requests back and forth to each other. Patty was chanting the word 'pepperoni' over and over again and Liz said something rather scathing about pineapple.

He rubbed his wrists, noting that the pain had faded long ago. They would probably have stopped bleeding by now, too, but he elected to keep the bandages on just in case. He could say that he was washing something and made the water too hot, resulting in scalds on his hands.

Italy had seen. Kid had noticed the young man's eyes flicker to his hands, if only for a moment. Did he know? Was he more intelligent that he appeared to be? Did he know what Kid was trying to do?

Pity. He had been certain that it would work this time.

Oh well, there was always tomorrow. And the day after that. He had all the time in the world.

Nothing to worry about, right?

* * *

**I apologise if this chapter just feels like a filler, it isn't intentional. As you can probably tell if you're a fan of Soul Eater, this chapter was partly inspired by that once scene in the anime (I think it was episode 31) where Liz and Patty took Crona to a shop and dressed hir up in different clothes. And can you imagine what Italy would look like in ordinary clothing? BTW there really are sunglasses with little fake moustaches on - I tried them on myself once when I went shopping with my parents.**

**Please don't worry about what Kid's doing. It is going to be resolved.**

**I think one other thing I should say is that I will _not_ be including translator notes in this story. If you're reading this, doesn't it mean you're on the internet? And there's got to be a billion online translators, right?**

**Отзывы приветствуются!**


	6. The Wonders of The Internet

_The silence was so thick you could cut it with a knife and eat it in a sandwich, if that makes any sense. It was strange how quietness could be louder than any noise could ever hope for – the lift-off of a passenger plane, a space shuttle as it blasts its way off into orbit, or even a Michael Bay movie with a soundtrack by AC/DC and the volume turned all the way up to 11. Italy wondered if he might need earplugs, or whether they'd just make the silence louder still._

"_Hello?" he shouted. "Is anyone there?"_

_Or at least, that's what he tried to shout. His lips were moving and air was coming out, but there was no sound. No matter how much he yelled and screamed, and even though his throat was now burning, silence was all there was. Silence was sovereign. Silence was his whole world now._

_Italy wasn't sure if he liked this world. It was too quiet and too dark for his liking. He couldn't hear or see anything, even though he was desperately screaming and waving his hands in front of his face. It was almost as though he didn't even exist anymore. It was frightening. He wanted out._

_Wait._

_What was that? Was someone talking?_

_He looked around. It was- it was Germany! He was standing right over there, just as intimidating and strict-looking as he always was! And he was talking to someone…_

_Kid?_

_Why would Germany be talking to Kid? Un-unless…_

"_Germany?" Italy tried to shout. "Kid? What's going on?"_

_But there was still no sound. What was happening? Was he dead? In a parallel universe with no sound and very little light and he didn't exist anymore?_

"_Of course," said Kid with a small smile. "I would be happy to. God knows he's not up to the job."_

"Das gute_," said Germany. "I have been searching for an adequate replacement ever since the end of World War 2. He's such a pussy, I can't stand to be around him anymore!"_

"_Wait!" Italy screamed noiselessly as they turned and began to walk away, still ignoring his presence completely. "Please don't leave me! I need you, Germany! GERMANY!"_

_And then, out of the darkness, there came a monster. It was twice Italy's height, a mass of hideous spines and tremendous claws which dripped with red liquid which could only have been blood. It failed to acknowledge Italy's presence and turned instead towards the departing pair, raising a set of menacing talons and preparing to strike down upon-_

"GERMANY!"

-and now he was in a room he didn't recognise, in a strange bed and for some reason wearing his vest and boxers.

Then he remembered where he was.

After they had eaten their pizza, which had taken longer than usual to cook (Italy had spent almost two hours painstakingly arranging everything from the pepperoni to the cheese so that it would be perfectly symmetrical in every way, retaining sanity by convincing himself that this was some kind of art, lest he invoke the wrath of Kid) Italy had found himself inexplicably exhausted. Kid had been courteous enough to show him to a prepared room – perfectly symmetrical, of course – and insisted that Italy at least keep his underwear on when he slept.

So after stripping down to his vest and boxers, Italy climbed into bed and didn't take long to fall asleep. It was another cold night, so he wrapped as much of the quilt around his body as possible. It was soft and comfortable, like his bed back home, and somehow this place didn't feel so alien anymore.

But then there was that dream…

His hair and pillow were soaking in sweat and his cheeks were streaked with tears. At least he hadn't wet the bed: he hadn't done that since the 15th century, much to Mr Austria's relief.

Was Kid still awake?

He would have to check. Italy climbed out bed and stepped out into the corridor, shivering slightly at the sudden chill touching his skin and making his arm sting again. Kid hadn't been kidding when he said it got cold at night. It didn't make sense. Wasn't it always hot in the desert? Wasn't that why it was a desert in the first place?

It didn't take him long to find Kid's room. Naturally, it was a double door, rendering the entrance perfectly symmetrical (as if it could be anything else). The woodwork was varnished such dark brown that it was black in the dim light and the handles were polished to absolute perfection.

Wait a minute, what was he doing? Surely he could just go and sleep in Germany's bed! Germany didn't mind when Italy slept in his bed – he would sometimes complain a little, but he never actually made any effort to get Italy back into his own bed and never kicked him out, so-

Oh.

Oh yeah.

Italy didn't know where Germany was.

It was okay though. He was in good hands, after all. Well, as good as possible when they were the hands of a slightly unhinged, obsessive-compulsive, symmetry fixated goth-dressing teenager and his thuggish guns-who-could-turn-into-pretty-girls. And Germany was brilliant, so he was sure to find Italy soon enough!

Right?

* * *

It was a truly marvellous dream. It was what dreams wanted to be when they died and went to dream heaven. Kid was sitting on a perfectly round stool, and fluttering around him were exactly 88 butterflies. No more and no less, or it would not be a dream. The butterflies had wings which, contrary to what entomology says should happen, were shaped exactly like tiny number 8s. They were currently in the process of doing something of a butterfly ballet for Kid. He wasn't sure what it was, exactly, but it was perfectly symmetrical.

Truly, this was the nirvana of dreams. This was what _dreams_ would dream about if it were possible. This was a dream which had reached enlightenment and would go on to entertain in the great dreamlands of legend.

"Ve~ Kid?"

And then the twenty-tonne truck which called itself reality came crashing in and yanked Kid back unceremoniously to the land of the living.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The dream had been very well lit, but blinking brought into focus the walls, the door, the young man standing next to his bed rubbing his eyes-

-wait, what?

"Italy, what are you doing here?" he asked. "I would have thought you fell asleep long ago."

"I had a nightmare," said Italy in a cracking voice which was verging on tears. "Usually I sleep with Germany when I have a nightmare, but since I can't do that right now, can I sleep with you?"

These words turned over and over in Kid's head as though it were a washing machine working at triple speed. Can I sleep with you? Did he mean sleep in the same bed or… the other thing which is referred to as 'sleeping with'? Considering the nature of who was saying it, Kid decided that it might be best to assume he meant the former rather than the latter.

"There's no way you're going to take no for an answer, is there?" he asked. When Italy shook his head in response, Kid relented and shifted towards the edge to make room for the young nation.

"Ve~ _grazie_, Kid," he said. "I always feel better when there's someone else in the bed."

"Really?" Kid said with disinterest. "I always sleep better alone."

"Don't you worry," said Italy, "you won't even know I'm here."

The trouble was that no matter how hard he tried, Kid couldn't ignore the fact that he wasn't alone in his bed. He was used to sleeping in the exact centre, maintaining perfect symmetry at all times, but now that symmetry had been destroyed and he was growing more and more uncomfortable by the minute. Not to mention awkward: it was obvious Italy wasn't asleep yet, and lying in bed with someone who is almost a complete stranger would be at least a little unnerving to anybody.

They both lay there for a while, the air growing thick with awkwardness. Italy wished the silence could be broken somehow because it was terrifyingly similar to the silence in his dream. He half expected there to be no noise when he tried to speak, so he didn't at that moment, just to be on the safe side.

Kid cleared his throat.

"So… you… do this often?" If he had spoken any more slowly, he would have been talking backwards.

"Hmm?" Italy replied, uncertain what he meant.

"Are you fond of getting into other peoples beds to sleep with them and throw off their symmetry?"

"Ve~ No, not really. I only do it when I have nightmares and I only usually get into Germany's bed, but Germany isn't here right now and you seem like the toughest person here. You don't mind, do you?"

'Yes,' thought Kid. 'Yes I do mind, because you're totally ruining the symmetry of my bed and if I weren't trying to be civilised and act polite towards you, I'd be chasing you out into the street while trying to bludgeon you about the head with my pillows, you asymmetrical, childish-!'

"No," is what he said instead, utilising his best fake smile, "of course not."

"Really? That's great! So if I have any more nightmares while I'm here, I can just sleep with you?"

'_NOOOOO!_' screamed Kid's mind.

"Alright then," said Kid's body.

"Ve~ _grazie_."

Silence settled upon them once again, like a cloying fog through which nothing could be seen save for vague, indistinct shapes and shadows.

"Why do you do that?" Kid asked eventually.

"Ve~ do what?" said Italy.

"I've noticed that you quite often say 've' at the beginnings of your sentences," Kid explained. "Why is it you do that?"

"I… well, I… I don't really know," said Italy. "Ve~ it's just something I do. I've done it ever since I was tiny and adorable and I still do it now that I'm big and adorable. I guess I never actually notice it. But I'm not the only one: my big brother Romano says 'chigi' when he gets angry, and he gets angry a _lot_. And China sometimes says 'aru' at the ends of his sentences, which is weird because I don't know what it means, and I don't want to ask Russia why he says 'da' at the ends of his sentences because he's too scary to talk to-"

"I understand what you mean," Kid interrupted. "Lots of you have verbal tics, but I have to ask: what kind of person are you?"

"Ve~?"

"Father explained some things to me, but I'm not sure I understood everything. You refer to yourself and others as though you were countries – not ambassadors or rulers, but the anthropomorphised personifications of the countries themselves. Why?"

"Because we are!"

Frustration beginning to brim over, Kid sat up, which prompted Italy to do the same.

"Fine," he said, "then I propose a little test."

"A test?!" cried Italy. "But I didn't study! If I'd known there was going to be a test I-"

"SSH!" Kid shushed loudly, pressing a hand over Italy's mouth. "Keep the volume down, we're making enough noise as it is! Do you want to wake up Thelma and Louise Junior?"

Italy pulled the young reaper's freezing hand away.

"I thought their names were Liz and Patty?" he asked.

Kid's other hand decided to make an epic journey, travelling all the way from where it rested on his lap to where it ended up slammed solidly into his face so hard that he almost broke his nose.

"Never mind," he sighed, wrenching his other hand free. "First off, if you're Italy, what were the circumstances of Benito Mussolini's death?"

"Oh!" Italy cheered up considerably. "That's an easy one! He tried to escape by disguising himself as a German soldier, but he forgot to change his pants so he was still wearing Italian pants when he got stopped and questioned. And after he was sent back to be put on trial, he was shot and hanged, but I remember they hanged him at a petrol station rather than at a proper gallows, which is kinda understandable since World War 2 was so horrible for everyone. Ve~ it was kinda gross, but I really didn't like being fascist and seeing so many people suffering. And I feel bad for saying this 'coz he was my boss and all, but I was glad to see him go."

Kid stared.

It was accurate. All of it.

"Ve~ it was an Esso petrol station, if you were wondering."

He didn't know what to make of it. This man talked about it as though he were really there. And it was a milestone in history, but he acted like it was just another day in his life. It could be explained if it was true and he really was a country as a human, but Kid was still somewhat sceptical.

"Alright," he said, choosing his words carefully. "Who crafted the Statue of David and when was it completed?"

"Another easy one!" Italy said chirpily. "It was made by Mr Michelangelo and he was working on it for 3 years, from 1501 to 1504. I told him he should probably include a fig leaf or something, but I guess he didn't listen. Also, the tree stump he holds used to be gilded and he used to have a gold laurel wreath, but I dunno what happened to those."

Again, it was a perfect recollection! Hardly anyone even knew about the gilding and the wreath; let alone what year the statue was made. And… suggested a fig leaf? Once again, it was as though he were there in person!

"You… suggested a fig leaf?" Kid asked uncertainly.

"_Si_!" said Italy.

"That would imply that you were there at the time," Kid stated, "which would make you over five hundred years old!"

"Oh, I'm a lot older than that," Italy said, again as though this happened every other Tuesday. "My birthday is March 17th, but that's all I really know for sure. And back then I was still only a little kid. I was so small that Mr Austria could pick me up with one hand and he wasn't exactly grown up either!"

He was being honest, that much was for sure. Wasn't March 17th the date when all the little nations unified and became a single larger country? That was the mid-1800s, wasn't it? If Italy aged in terms of his country's status, that would have been comparable to puberty for him, but this whole thing was still rather suspect.

Of course, being the son of Death meant that Kid wasn't one to object, especially in terms of age, but it was still more plausible than being a country in human form.

"Ve~ if you really want me to prove it to you, there is one trick I know."

Finally, they were getting somewhere!

"What is it?" asked Kid.

"I don't know how it works," said Italy. "It's something we countries can do to normal people if we get into trouble with them. Ve~ we just sorta put our fingers on their foreheads and think really hard about our history and everything that's happened to us."

"And this will prove you're really what you say you are?"

"Ve~ I hope so. You want me to do it?"

'Don't do it,' said the fading portion of Kid's mind. 'You know this is ridiculous, so why don't you just demand that he sleep downstairs if he wants somewhere else? Because you're _curious_?'

"Yes," Kid said, ignoring what was apparently common sense.

Italy brought his right hand into view from underneath the bedsheets and looked at it as though he were nervous. Then, with a small gulp, he outstretched his index finger-

"Wait," said Kid, shifting away slightly. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Ve~ once or twice," Italy admitted reluctantly. "Sometimes when I hit on pretty girls, they take it a bit too seriously and call the _polizia_. I have to do something when the white flags don't work and the cops won't stop trying to hurt me!"

'What on earth was he doing or saying which warranted a police call?' thought Kid.

Italy raised his finger again-

"Wait a minute," said Kid, holding up his hands defensively. "This doesn't hurt, does it?"

"I don't know," said Italy. "Mostly people just get this weird look on their face, but don't worry! They always wake up again after a few minutes!"

…Well, Kid was a grim reaper, so the effect might be dulled somewhat…

He had to do this. He wanted to know for sure.

"W-wait!"

"Ve~ what is it now?" asked Italy. It was very faint, but there was definitely a hint of frustration in his voice.

"You're only using one hand?"

They both looked down at the bandaged limb which was hanging limply at Italy's left side.

"Sorry," said Kid, feeling that his comment may have been in bad taste.

He decided, in that case, that he should close his eyes so that he didn't see (and therefore wouldn't be bothered as much by) the asymmetrical position that Italy had put himself in. On the downside, it did mean that he wouldn't be able to see whatever was happening, but-

Suddenly he felt a rush of energy wash through his whole body which could easily be compared to standing on a live wire. His head was filled with endless images, all rushing through his mind's eye at a speed where they blurred together into a near-solid mass of pure, unfiltered history: there was so much conflict, so much fear, so much confusion and more white flags than he ever thought could have existed on a single planet…

His body went limp and slumped backwards.

Italy remained in that position for a little while, finger hovering uselessly in the air, too surprised to think about moving. He looked down at the young reaper: all of Kid that rested on the bed now was his lower legs, toes pointing straight up at the ceiling. His body formed a neat slope down to the ground where his shoulders lay, arms spread out on either side. His closed eyes indicated that he had blacked out.

"Ve~ Kid?" said Italy nervously. "You okay?"

There was no reply. Another fainter, huh? No, wait, he was opening his eyes.

"Kid?" Italy repeated.

Then he started to panic.

"I'm so sorry!" he cried. "I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear! I didn't know it could be that powerful; please don't be mad at me, please!"

"It-it's okay," Kid said weakly. "I… just… wasn't expecting it to be so intense."

"Ve~ it's hundreds of years of history in only a couple of seconds," Italy pointed out. "You went all stiff and shaky like you were being zapped or something!"

Hand still quivering, Kid reached up and felt his hair. Naturally he was surprised when he found out that it wasn't all standing on end. He slowly and tentatively pulled himself back up onto the bed and lay there, unmoving, waiting for the electrical sensation to pass from his body.

"Just be glad I wasn't England, 'coz he's been around for ages longer than I have," Italy said as he lay back down. "He's always been a lot meaner too, ever since his mother was part of Grandpa's empire. Ve~ she was very bitter too. She tried to poke me with her trident and that isn't a euphemism for anything. Do you know why that might be?"

Once again, his question was met with silence.

"Kid?"

Kid sighed heavily and rolled onto his side, eyes softly closed. He had fallen back to sleep. Italy didn't know whether to blame what he had just done or the fact that he had been woken up in the middle of the night unexpectedly, but in any case he looked adorable.

And before he settled down to sleep in the comfort of company, Italy made sure to pull the quilt up to Kid's shoulders.

* * *

Kid woke up the next morning wondering what the hell he drank last night which could have given him such a horrendous headache. It was as though he had been shot in the back of the head – and the front, both sides and on top. He caught himself thinking that Liz and Patty had decided to attempt an escape in the middle of the night and emptied a few rounds into his head for good measure, but then he remembered the unnerving events of last night. It was hard to forget, especially since there was a heavily bandaged forearm draped over his body.

Was this just something Italy did? Would this so-called Germany wake up in the mornings to find this brown-haired coward cuddling him like a child's teddy-bear? It wasn't that he was being held tightly so much as the fact that he was being held at all. And he barely even knew this man!

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Thanks to the slightly disturbing events of last night, he now had practically the entire history of the country of Italy nestled comfortably in his mind. At least now he would never need any history lessons, but he had seen others in there too. Other people who were most likely… they seemed to call themselves either 'countries' or 'nations' from what these memories were helpfully informing him.

Perhaps the most prominent one was a tall, muscular, well dressed young man with slicked-back blonde hair and stern blue eyes, quite obviously the man Kid had encountered on the mission on which he had met Italy – the one whose back had been carved into by the kishin-to-be.

And according to those memories, this man was Germany.

Surely he had nothing to worry about. DWMA paramedics were among the best in the world – his father had made sure of that. They couldn't let innocent civilians die in a student's mission if it was possible to save them, and not just because it would be bad publicity. They existed to protect and preserve peace, to safeguard the human race from all those who chose to stray from humanity and walk the path of a kishin. If the balance between good and evil was upset in any way, they would know. It would be easy to save the life of a single man.

But what if they weren't successful? What if Germany was dead? Even an idiot could see that Italy had no idea, but the poor man was clearly convinced that sooner or later he was going to be rescued by the soldier-type person he saw as a hero. And what if he didn't? Would Italy just keep waiting for him forever?

No. Surely the Europe branch would have contacted him if someone had died on his mission.

Wouldn't they?

Kid decided it would be best to think about this later. Right now he had to escape from Italy's grasp, which would be difficult because the arm draped over his body was the bandaged arm and moving it without causing the young man pain seemed to be an impossible task.

Hang on, his hand was moving-

"GYA!"

His foot kicked out involuntarily as he scrambled out of bed and tumbled to the floor, hitting Italy's leg in the process and giving him a rather painful wake-up call. So painful, in fact, that he started screaming wildly.

"We're under attack!" he yelled, plunging his head beneath the covers. "Evacuate! Evacuate! Women, children and me first!"

"Don't DO that!" Kid shouted back, ignoring his needless pleas.

Slowly, like a timid rabbit, Italy looked out from under the quilt.

"Ve~ don't do what?" he asked. "Why are you on the floor and why do you look so angry at me?"

"You touched my stomach," Kid said flatly, clutching his abdomen like it was as precious as the Shroud of Turin. "Please don't _ever_ touch my stomach on pain of pain. I'll have you know that it's a very sensitive area which I don't ever let anyone touch!"

Italy extracted himself from the bedsheets.

"You mean," he said, "you're ticklish?"

Kid could recognise that tone on anybody. He was plotting something.

"I never said I was ticklish!" he insisted, backing away across the floor as the young nation moved towards him with a mischievous smile spreading across his face. "I just have certain parts of my body which are more sensitive than the rest, so I'd prefer it if you didn't touch them and I'd _really_ prefer it if you stopped advancing on me like that-"

With a small _bonk_, he realised he could back away no further because he had hit the wall. Still maintaining his now blatantly false innocence, Italy knelt down in front of the young reaper who had honestly never believed anything like this could happen to him.

"Ve~ so where else are you 'sensitive'?"

Good grief, the quotation marks were practically audible.

"Are you sensitive… here?"

He poked Kid lightly in his left side, causing him to leap involuntarily several centimetres to the right with a loud yelp.

"Stop it!" Kid demanded, almost alarmed at how childish he was starting to sound.

"What about on this side?" asked Italy, poking Kid's right several times.

"C-ha, cut it- gya ha, cut it out!" His composure was slipping away.

"Ve~ how 'bout we try both sides at the same time?" Italy said cheerfully.

"You wouldn't," said Kid. "You don't have it in you!"

He looked as though he were ready to fight for his life, and would most likely do so if given the opportunity. Italy realised that if he was to achieve what he was aiming for, he would need a distraction. Something to catch Kid by surprise and make him drop his guard.

And he knew exactly what would work.

He opened his eyes.

* * *

**OCD NUTCASE OWNED IN TICKLE FIGHT**

Uploaded by Gunfreakofbrooklyn

6,428,293 views

**12,894 likes – 45 dislikes**

LOL my meister is such a dumbass! He totally let himself get tickled by a weirdo with an injured arm! Maybe this will make him lighten up (don't count on it :P).

**Symmetryisawesome88: **How did you even film this?

**Gunfreakofbrooklyn: **_ symmetryisawesome88 _You were so busy getting tickledyou didn't notice me open the door? BTW thanks for the camera phone XD

**Symmetryisawesome88: **_ gunfreakofbrooklyn _Seriously? Over six million views already? Nearly 13,000 likes? The least you could do is make it symmetrical! :(

**Iwannagiraffe: **_ symmetryisawesome88 _lol wut do u expect?

**InventorOfEverything:** lol this kind of funny stuff was invented in south korea 4 sure!

**MsReadalot:** Isn't it horrible what you can find on the internet these days?

**Coolscytheman15: **_ MsReadalot_ Yeah, nothing's worse than seeing a teenager get tickled by some weird curly-haired dude for 3 whole minutes. Admit it, you laughed :P

**Ladyloverscythe44: **sure hope my boss doesn't see this it's his kid after all.

**DissectionDoctor:** _ Ladyloverscythe44 _Don't worry, I'll dissect you long before he finds out lol.

**Ladyloverscythe44: **_ DissectionDoctor _STAY AWAY FROM ME OKAAAAY?!1!?1!

**IWILLSURPASSGOD: **45 people pissed themselves last time they were tickled.

**Tomatoman317: **Is that my brother? FRATELLO IF THAT'S YOU GET BACK HOME RIGHT NOW BASTARDO

**Camelliablossom: **I don't think it's very funny…

**IWILLSURPASSGOD:** _ Camelliablossom _No your right it's hilarious! Lol :)

**PianoMan1156: **What is the world coming to?

**FryingPangle:** _ PianoMan1156 _what do you mean? This is the best thing ever XD

**Awesome5METERS: **_ Pianoman1156 _Lighten up jerkwad u laughed! XD PS West if ur reading this where the hell r u…?

* * *

**As you can probably tell, I had one hell of a lot of fun writing the YouTube comments thing. Any dedicated Soul Eater and/or Hetalia fan could probably tell who's who. Also, I think I should repeat that this isn't going to be a Kid/Italy fic. Italy got into be with Kid because he's Italy and that's what he does (PS tickish Kid is best Kid).**

**I think I should warn my readers that from here on out, the story is going to get very... feelsy. That's the best word to describe it: feelsy. Chapters 10 and 12 in particular, as well as parts of 13 and 16, will most likely require a box of tissues if you want to be able to read them and remain alive. If you have any questions regarding the story, feel free to ask, bu don't be surprised if my reply is simply *spoilers*.**

**Reviews uenisti!**


	7. Death City Girls Aren't Easy

'Maybe I should've got those sunglasses after all,' Italy thought as he followed Kid through the streets. 'It's so bright out here and my eyes aren't really used to it quite yet. I guess I would look kinda weird with a pair of moustache glasses though.' He raised his arm to shield his eyes from the glaring sunlight.

"Kid?" he said. "Why are you so angry, ve~?"

"You know our little 'tickle fight' earlier?" Kid replied bitterly. "Liz decided to film it and upload it onto DeathTube, where it already has nearly seven million views even though it's only lunchtime. Luckily it's not a very good camera and the quality's rather a mess, but thanks to you my humiliation has been publicised across the entire world! Do you understand why I'm angry now?"

"Ve~ you think I shouldn't have tickled you?"

Somehow, the best way to describe Kid's face would be 'deflated'. Italy wasn't sure how, but that's what it was and it was definitely rather funny.

"Let's just get this over with," the young reaper groaned. "Thanks to your cookery escapades, we're running low on several things – most prominently eggs, flour and tomatoes. I would also like to buy some juice as well and if you're wondering why you're with me, it's because I think it best for you to spend some time outside and get acclimatised with Death City. Maybe then you'll feel more comfortable and not decide to sleep in other people's beds."

He looked around to ask whether or not he had been clear enough, but saw Italy admiring the roses in a window box nearby. After checking that no-one else was watching what he was doing, he pulled one out and started looking around again. Kid considered admonishing him for lagging behind and stealing other people's plants, but after a few second's consideration he decided instead to stand back and watch what happened. Who knows, it may prove interesting.

Italy, meanwhile, was feeling a little nervous. The rose was truly lovely – it was pink, red at its centre and fading to almost white around the edges of the petals, and the stalk was remarkably free of thorns – but where was there a pretty girl he could give it to? His eyes coasted the street in search of one-

And then he saw her.

To describe this girl would be to reduce her beauty to mere words, which are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Words had yet to be invented to elaborate how unbelievably gorgeous she was, and Italy wondered if his eyes had fallen upon a goddess or an angel. Her eyes were like amethysts, sparkling in the sunlight, her skin pale and practically glowing, her long ebony hair tied behind her head and trailing down her back like a snake. Curves in all the right places and a beautiful yet simple dress which somehow managed to be modest and revealing at the same time.

She was amazing. Out of this world. It was a miracle how everyone was walking through the street without catching sight of her and losing focus. The kind of girl who'd never look at someone like Italy in a million years. Except she _was_ looking at him. He gave her a smile, which caused her to blush and look away, but she was smiling as well. That was a good thing, right?

'Okay, Italy,' thought the country. 'You can do this. You're a country after all, so you're strong, aren't you? Besides that, you're Italian! It's practically your life duty to talk to pretty girls!'

He realised he was still looking at her, and waved in a rather subdued manner. She waved back, equally subdued.

'But she's not just pretty, she's _beautiful_!' he thought. 'No. It's okay. I've eaten England's scones and survived. Compared to that, this should be a piece of cake, right?'

Right then. This was happening. He waited for her to look away again before slowly approaching her, rose in hand.

"Ve~ excuse me," he said, "I was just wondering if you could help me?"

She turned to face him. No backing out now.

"What do you need help with?" Dear god, even her _voice_ was lovely.

"Well, see," said Italy, "I got this rose, and when I got it I thought to myself, 'Wow. Such a lovely flower like this deserves to be given to the most beautiful young lady on the whole planet'."

The girl's blush darkened. She could see where this was going.

"Ve~ I thought I was going to have to search all over the world to find the most lovely girl," Italy continued, "but then I saw you and I realised I only had to look across the street. So I don't suppose you would consider accepting it?"

She giggled.

"I would love to accept your rose," she said, and began to reach for it.

"Hold on," said Italy. "I have a better idea. May I…?"

He reached up and threaded the stem through the band which tied her hair, setting the rose so that it adorned the base of her ponytail. She eyed her reflection in a nearby window and a smile lit up her face like the sun.

"Thank you so much," she said happily, "it's beautiful! Even if it came out of a window box."

Wait, what?

"H-how did you know?" Italy asked. Oh no. He was busted! Was she going to turn him down or slap him in the face like Germany did when he flirted with pretty girls instead of focusing on training?

No. She was just smiling pleasantly and heart-warmingly.

"Don't worry," she said in a somewhat coy voice, "I won't tell if you don't."

"R-really?" asked Italy. "_Grazie! _I- I mean, that means thank you, and it's Italian, I thanked you in Italian, erm…"

"There's no need to be shy," said the girl, placing a reassuring hand on his arm – right arm, thank goodness. "I already like you and I think you're adorable. Do you have a name?"

"Ve~ of course I do," Italy replied, feeling more confident by the second. "You can call me Feliciano Vargas."

"Feliciano," the girl repeated as though trying out the word. "That's a cute name. Let me guess: you're Italian?"

"_Si_, how did you know?"

"Well, there is the fact that you speak with an accent which is quite plainly Italian," said the girl, "and then you thanked me and said 'yes' in Italian, and I'm pretty sure Feliciano is an Italian name."

It was Italy's turn to blush. How could he have not noticed these giveaways before? He wondered whether he should just go and try something somewhere else – Kid would probably be getting impatient by now – but no, the girl was smiling.

"It's okay," she said, "You don't need to be embarrassed. The truth is; I'm not from around here either."

"Ve~ really?" said Italy, interest piqued. "What's your name?"

"Oh!" The girl suddenly realised that she hadn't revealed her name. "It's-"

"Tsubaki!"

The loud newcomer was a short, stocky and alarmingly muscular young boy with an insane mass of blue spiky hair. He was frowning while sipping from a soda can and clutching a couple of boxes of cheap sandwiches in his other hand.

"I got your sandwich like you asked," he said. "Who's this weirdo? C'mon, let's blow this joint."

He started to walk away, and to Italy's disappointment, so did the lovely girl. But before she left, she hastily scribbled something down on a piece of paper and gave it to him, and as she was walking away she held her hand up to her ear like a phone and mouthed the words "Call me!"

Italy looked at the scrap of paper.

"It's a phone number," he said quietly. "I got a pretty girl's phone number!"

Heart swollen like America's ego, he joyfully ran back over to Kid, who was looking a little stunned by what had just occurred.

"Ve~ did you see that?" Italy asked. "I talked to a pretty girl and she didn't slap me or spray stinging stuff in my face! Not only that, but she was really nice to me and she gave me her phone number! And she called me adorable, how amazing is that?!"

Kid pushed the excitable man back a few inches.

"I have to say," he said, "and I never thought I'd say these words in your presence, but I confess: I'm somewhat impressed with how you handled yourself back there. You may be an idiot, but she seemed to find it endearing and you should hope the number she gave you isn't fake, which I'm afraid it most likely is considering what her meister's like."

Italy froze and looked at the paper.

"Oh," he said quietly and sounding a little disappointed, "okay."

He watched the girl's retreating back.

"Ve~ who is that girl?" he asked. "Do you know? And do you know why she's with that ugly little man?"

"I'm not a hundred per cent sure who they are," Kid explained, "but I know they're students at the academy and that the 'ugly little man' is one of the loudest and most obnoxious people I've ever had the displeasure of viewing through Father's mirror."

"That girl's still just a student?"

"One of the older ones. How she can put up with that boy is a complete mystery to me. Anyway, because of your rather ineffectual attempt at romance, we are now behind schedule and should proceed straight to the grocery store. Understood?"

"_Si_, I got it."

* * *

Half an hour later they were walking back down the same street, each holding a paper bag filled with various grocery items.

"Ve~ that lady in the store was really nice!" Italy stated even though it was met with ignorance. "And she called you by name which must mean you go there a lot of the time-"

"They're the only grocery store in the whole of Death City courteous enough to stack their cans symmetrically," Kid explained.

Then he froze.

Italy stopped walking, wondering why the young reaper would suddenly stop in the middle of the street. He hadn't before, so why would he do it now?

"Uh, Kid?" he said nervously. "Ve~ are you okay?"

"The street," Kid replied. "All these people. I didn't notice before because you distracted me – so _disorganized…_"

He grabbed Italy's wrist and pulled him off the street.

"GAH, Kid! That's my bad arm, what're you doing?"

"Quit complaining," Kid commanded. "We're taking a route through the alleyways, which may be rather dirty but at least they have some degree of symmetry."

'But this really hurts!' Italy's mind complained. 'Why is he so obsessed with tidiness and symmetry? Not even Germany is obsessed as him – I saw him earlier today and he was going around making sure all the window frames were level with the floor! I'm betting it's because he's a grim reaper, but why is he hurting me like this? Does he even know?'

Apparently not. Italy struggled to maintain a grip on the bag he held and gritted his teeth in an attempt to bear the pain of wounds which he had yet to even see while the young reaper dragged him through the shadowed alleys.

"Hey, you!"

Kid stopped as suddenly as he had started, and he and the frightened nation looked up at the man who now stood before them. He was at least two feet taller than the young reaper and had three times as much muscle.

"I don't like to mess around, alright?" he said. "So just hand over whatever money you've got and make this easy on both of you."

There was a pause as Kid mulled over what to do and Italy grew more and more frightened.

"Wait a minute," said the mugger, "you're Lord Death's son, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Kid. "Yes I am, and I'm afraid your luck has run out."

The mugger laughed like the young reaper's words were the funniest thing in the world, and Italy started searching his clothes for a white flag, hoping against hope that he didn't leave them back at Gallows Manor.

"Italy, could you hold my bag for me?"

"Ve~ okay, but what are you-"

"Just stay calm. I'll handle this."

"_You?_" the mugger scoffed as Kid approached him. "I'd like to see you try, you puny little-"

The boy's fist flashed through the air and slammed into the side of the man's head, eliciting a small stream of blood from the corner of his mouth. This in itself was impressive, but Kid wasn't done: he allowed the momentum of his punch to swing his body into a spin and roundhouse kicked the mugger into the nearest wall. One final punch to the back of the head and the poor man was wishing he'd never been born seconds before he lost consciousness.

Kid straightened his suit.

"The least people could do nowadays is put a little effort in," he complained. "I may as well have been fighting a couch cushion."

He dusted off his hands (rather pointlessly since they were already clean) and beckoned for Italy to follow him.

"That was amazing!" the young nation cried as he pranced after the reaper. "Ve~ I was so scared and I didn't know what to do, but I shouldn't have been scared because you were all like POW when you punched him and BLAM when you kicked him right into the wall, I didn't even know you could do that! And then you were like KERSPLAT and knocked him out! How come you're so strong and fight-y like that?"

"It always disgusts me when residents of Father's city turn to a life of crime," Kid explained. "For that reason, I've been practicing the art of reaper combat ever since I was small. I don't think that man will be mugging anyone else anytime soon."

Italy looked back at the man, who was picking himself up off the ground. He watched them for a moment, shrugged and walked away in a sulk.

"You know what I think?" he said to Kid.

Kid turned to him and waited patiently for him to continue.

"Ve~ I think Germany would really like you."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah! You're super serious and neat and you're way better at fighting than I'll ever be, you're practically just like him!"

Something occurred to Kid which hadn't been on his mind since that morning.

"You like Germany, don't you?" he asked.

"Ve~ you bet your life on it!" Italy said happily. "He's the best friend I've ever had in my life! Sometimes he's kinda mean to me, but I know he's not serious about it because he just cares about me because we're friends. And he's always there to pull me out whenever I get into trouble, how could you not like that?"

His… best friend?

He couldn't tell him. There was no way Kid would be able to safely explain that Germany most likely would _not_ be coming to pull out Italy this time. He would just start crying and blubbering again, and he just made a mess when that happened. Plus his high-pitched whines were painful to listen to.

Damn.

"Why do you ask, anyway?"

"No reason. Let's just go."

"Ve~ Kid?"

"What is it now?"

"Do you think you could take this bag from me? My arm is really starting to hurt a lot from holding it."

"Of course, sorry."

They continued onward; Kid weaving through the labyrinth of alleys with all the skill of an expert navigator, Italy tagging along behind like an enthusiastic puppy which had just been promised a treat.

He was going to tell him the truth some time. He had to. He just wasn't ready yet, that's all.

* * *

The sandwich contained bacon, lettuce and tomatoes and was very delicious. Italy had never considered this combination before and was now regretting it rather thoroughly. He noticed that Kid wasn't eating with quite as much gusto, but didn't really give a damn because this sandwich was so delicious.

"Ve~ Kid?"

Kid looked up from his sandwich.

"Yes?" he said.

"I waff juff wonf-"

"Please finish your mouthful before you speak."

'Oh, right,' thought Italy. He swallowed heavily.

"I was just wondering; where have Liz and Patty gone to? I thought they were always here in the afternoons."

"Ah, that," said Kid. "In order to teach them a little responsibility, I set them up with jobs as waitresses at a local café. I have to assume it's going well since I only get about ten complaints per day."

"Complaints? Ve~ what about?"

"The usual things you can expect when you consider that up until recently they had to mug anyone they came across just to get food," Kid explained. "Mostly rudeness and swearing. Tell me, if you had attended a café with the intention of ordering a cup of coffee, would you like it if it were delivered with a loud 'Here's your motherfucking coffee, bitch'?"

"No!" cried Italy.

"Neither do most of the residents of Death City. I have to admit, I'm rather worried about them. They've never had a civilised life, so I'm not surprised that they don't know what to make of it, but if they can't adjust then I don't know what's going to happen to them. Father says that they'll have to be turned over to the police to face justice for all the crimes they committed, but that's not the worst part. Not even close."

Needless to say, Italy was a little shocked. Were those two pretty girls really so notorious that they were on the run from the cops? It was absolutely awful – so awful, in fact, that he wanted to find out everything.

"Ve~ what's the worst part?" he asked, dreading what the answer could be.

Kid tensed up, taking deep breaths and mentally preparing himself for what he believed would be the most horrifying explanation in the history of the world.

"They look absolutely _nothing_ alike," he said. "I swear they do it deliberately just to get on my nerves. It's not a problem when they're in weapon form, because they're perfectly identical in every way and when I hold them in each hand I'm perfectly balanced – and I steadfastly refuse to fight with only one – but as humans they're completely different. You may already have noticed that Liz is considerably taller than Patty, and Patty possesses much shorter hair than her elder sister PLUS it's almost an entirely different colour. The way they decide to dress, the styles of their boots and hats: hell, even the shapes and the shades of blue in their eyes are different and their cup sizes aren't even close to each other! It's maddening! Completely maddening! I'm amazed that I even made it this far without losing it entirely!"

"But isn't that just something that happens sometimes?" Italy asked, not seeing what the problem was. "Like me and my big brother Romano: he's lots taller than me 'coz he's older than me, and his eyes are paler and his hair and skin's kinda darker than mine and he has a curl, but it goes off in opposite direction to mine-"

"Stop it."

"-and Germany and his big brother Prussia, I didn't even know they were related until Germany told me! 'Coz even though Germany's all blonde and blue eyed and stuff, Prussia kinda looks like a lab rat – you know, the white ones with the pink eyes? Ve~ his eyes aren't pink, they're sort of dark red, like wine coloured, and his hair isn't white but kinda silver even though he's not a wrinkly yet-"

"I said cut it out!"

"-come to think of it, one of the only brother or sister nations I know who look kinda similar are Switzerland and Liechtenstein, but Liechtenstein's eyes are much bigger and a little bluer than Switzerland's and she's a lot shorter, plus she's not as trigger happy or bad tempered-"

"STOP IT!" Kid shouted, leaping to his feet. "Will you please just _shut up_, you stupid, pathetic little-"

He clenched his fists, trying and failing to keep his cool, and quickly constructed a mental dam to hold back his frustration. He knew that if he were to let loose and tear into Italy like he so dearly wanted to, the man would explode into a fountain of tears and bawling, which would only make a mess. Even now he was looking frightened of Kid's sudden outburst – he had been so invested in his description of his… _imperfect_ friends that he hadn't noticed the young reaper growing increasingly incensed.

He sighed, allowing all physical evidence of his anger to fade from his body.

"I think I should make sure the girls are behaving themselves," he said, leaving the table.

Italy chased after him into the entrance hall.

"Ve~ wait!" he called as he grabbed Kid's arm. "I-I'm sorry if I upset you, please don't leave me alone! I hate being alone, I hate it more than anything! Well, maybe not England's cooking, but please don't leave me on my own!"

Kid wrenched his arm out of Italy's grasp.

"I won't take long," he practically growled. "I'll be back within eighteen minutes, twenty at the maximum. But if you dare to displace a single thing within this house, you will have hell to pay and I will never forgive you for as long as I live. Do you understand?"

It may not have looked it, but Italy did understand. It was the kind of excuse that people always used when they wanted to get away from him. He lowered his arms and turned his gaze forlornly to the floor, taking on the appearance of a kicked puppy.

"Okay," he muttered.

Without another word, Kid left the house, leaving Italy wallowing in a deep pit of loneliness.

It was the only thing he could bring himself to truly admit to hating. He didn't know why, but he always felt… what was a word he could use? Comforted? Happy? Reassured? Whatever the word was, it only properly applied when he was around other people. It didn't really matter who it was: the mere knowledge that there was someone else there was enough to put him at ease and relax his mind to the point where he could happily fall asleep right where he was. Even somebody super-duper creepy like Russia, or crazy and childish like America, or extra grumpy with a side order of serious like Germany…

He was fine. He was Germany after all, he could do anything! Well, maybe he couldn't fight off a massive army of aliens all by himself, but surely it wouldn't be difficult for him to find Italy and bring him home. Death City wasn't exactly the definition of 'inconspicuous'.

Italy didn't even know what 'inconspicuous' meant. Was it some kind of cake?

So… what to do… Kid had told him not to touch anything, but that didn't mean he couldn't look around, right?

Yeah! That's it! He could explore the house!

Right after he finished that delicious sandwich.

And so it was that five minutes after the owner of Gallows Manor departed, Italy Veneziano found himself running like a kid at Christmas through the corridors and marvelling at the wonders. Everything was in shades of white, grey, red or black: presumably a natural colour scheme considering it was the home of a Grim Reaper. The tidiness was nothing short of impeccable, and Italy worried that Kid might get angry at him for so much as walking on the carpet the wrong way. And, of course, there were skull motifs EVERYWHERE.

'This is so eerie,' he thought as he explored the top floor. 'Ve~ such a massive house and only three people live here? How much space do two girls and a boy need? Well, considering that the girls don't seem to like Kid very much, it could be rather a lot.'

He saw a clock on the wall, which told him that Kid had been gone for almost half an hour.

'It's only been half an hour?' he thought. 'It feels like half a day…'

He realised that in all this time he hadn't paid very much attention to the ceiling, and when he did it was to see a trapdoor over his head.

"Ve~ that must lead to the attic!" he thought out loud. "I wonder if I could reach it. I bet there must be loads of cool reaper stuff up there."

He jumped up and down, trying to reach the trapdoor, but it was too high. Even when he crouched down so low that his face was practically touching the floor, his fingers barely even brushed the painted woodwork.

"Hmm," he said, once again thinking aloud. "Ve~ I'm going to have to try something else. What's that thing England sometimes talks about? Lackial thinking? Ladial thinking? La- Lateral thinking, that's it! I have to try lateral thinking!"

He paused.

"What _is_ lateral thinking?" he said.

* * *

The doors slammed closed and Kid fell, mentally exhausted, against the solid wood. His body slipped down until he was sitting on the floor.

He had expected them to be a little belligerent – they hadn't exactly been very happy about having to work as waitresses in the first place – but this had been the first time they had physically _attacked _him. Liz had thrown a mug right at his face: luckily he had caught it before it smashed into his nose, but it had still come as quite a surprise. She said he was bothering the customers, but as far as he could tell it was she and her sister who had been doing the bothering, shouting at him like that. It was as if they weren't even trying to adjust.

Then, after stopping to correct a girl's pigtails so that they were even and symmetrical, he headed straight home. Maybe he had invaded her personal space as she looked rather embarrassed, but as long as she wasn't untidy he didn't really care. By the looks of things she was a student at the DWMA, and he couldn't afford to let his father's school have a bad image.

Now where was Italy?

"Italy, I'm back," he called, voice echoing throughout the house. "I told you I wouldn't take very long."

There was no reply. Was he still frightened?

"Italy, are you here?"

It was unlikely that he'd ventured out into the city by himself. He was such a wet blanket that he would probably stop breathing if somebody told him to, and would only start again once he was ordered. And even then only fitfully in case he was told to stop again.

"Italy?"

And then he saw them.

Footprints.

Dusty footprints all over his pristine carpet.

Death the Kid swore a pact: before the sun rose the next morning, somebody was going to die in this house.

* * *

**DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!**

**But seriously now, quite a lot of things are going to happen in the next chapter. This and the next are basically the same chapter, but I split them into two because otherwise they would have been way, way, _way _too long for anybody's attention span. Also, stay tuned because you never know: you might even find out what became of a certain blonde European tough guy...**

**Vélemények is szívesen látjuk! (you've probably figured out that this always says Reviews are Welcome! in different languages)**


	8. The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret

With his anger growing to the point where steam was practically pouring out of his ears, Kid followed the footprints through his otherwise perfect house.

'I swear,' he thought to himself, 'if I find any other messes in this house- if this is what I get for leaving somebody like Italy alone in this place then this is exactly what I deserve!'

His feet thudded into the ground so hard that they practically measured on the Richter scale as he discovered that the greyish-brown footprints led to the entrance to-

-a cleaning closet?

He wrenched it open. He had been dreading what might be inside, and was therefore surprised to discover that a broom, a feather duster and a bucket were all missing. Careful inspection proved that the footprints led towards it from the upper floors.

'What in the world has Italy been doing?' thought Kid as he followed them.

"ITALY!" he screamed. "WHERE ARE YOU AND WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WHICH WOULD LEAVE DUSTY FOOTPRINTS ALL OVER MY FLOOR?!"

Still no reply. Maybe he was out of hearing range.

The blend of curiosity and anger drove Kid to find the source of the dusty footprints, so he followed them through corridors and up several sets of stairs until he found a ladder leading up to a hole in the ceiling on the top floor.

"Italy, are you up there?" he called.

"_Si_!" was the happily clueless reply.

"What are you doing in the attic?" Kid demanded. "I'm guessing it's the reason you've left those footprints all over my house, but why did you have to steal my cleaning implements?"

"Ve~ Come and look!" Italy answered.

Heaving an exasperated sigh, the young reaper climbed up the ladder and entered the attic, and it was lucky his face was so close to the ground because his jaw didn't have far to go to hit it.

The attic had never been a very bright place. For a room which shared about half the floor size as the base of Gallows Manor, it bore only six windows – two at either end and four in the side walls – none of which were large enough to let in a substantial amount of light. And if Kid's memory served him correctly (which it always did without fail) no matter how much he cleaned this place, it was always dusty again before he had even finished.

But now, for the first time in years, the attic was _gleaming_. The crates inside, which were already stacked in tidy piles, had been caked under dust since Kid's last attempt at housekeeping, where now a deep brown rather than the murky grey which the young reaper had gotten used to. The windows allowed in more light than they ever had, the glass utterly spotless for the first time in decades. The floor, however, was still doused in soapy water, which Italy was brushing towards a heap of towels which were quite clearly stolen from the bathroom. The only thing which had even the slightest bit of dirt on it was the feather duster which sat on top of a crate next to a damp-looking bucket.

"Don't come too far onto the floor, okay?" asked Italy, not even looking up from his work. "Ve~ I haven't quite finished cleaning it yet. I'm sorry I couldn't find any really old towels, but I'm sure those ones will be fine if you wash them enough. And don't worry about those dusty footprints down there; I can clean them up in no time at all!"

He smiled cheekily at Kid, but it faded when he saw the young reaper's expression of concentrated shock.

"Uh, Kid?" he said. "You okay? Ve~ you look like you've seen a ghost!"

"I-" Kid stammered, speechless for one of the first times in his life. Why was he so matter of fact about this? "Y-you- I- I don't- you- how?! How did you manage it?"

"Ve~ I had a lot of practise cleaning Mr Austria's house when I was still only a little boy and people thought I was a girl because I wore Ms Hungary's clothes," Italy explained. "Germany says Mr Austria's a total freeloader and he never does anything for himself except play the piano, but I think that's just because Mr Austria used to live with him and annoy him a bunch and break his cups. You could say I grew up with a feather duster in my hand if you were some poet type guy."

He continued to scrub the floor with the brush, eating away at years' worth of accumulated muck, while Kid stepped up onto the area where the floor had dried.

"I haven't been able to come up here in decades," he said. "I could never keep up with the workload. I knew that by the time I'd finished cleaning there would at least be _some_ of it which was dirty again. I don't understand how you were able to do this so quickly!"

"Ve~ I wasn't really thinking about it."

"Wasn't re- I would think it's impossible to think about anything else!"

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?"

Kid gulped heavily, shoving his confusion, which was quickly and uncontrollably transmuting itself into anger, behind the mental dam which housed the rest of his frustration.

"Never mind," he said in faux-calmness. "I guess you're not completely useless after all."

While Italy stood stunned, glowing with pride, Kid approached a nearby crate and pulled out a large yet relatively thin book, which shone like polished glass in the unencumbered sunlight.

"This will all be dusty again tomorrow, you know," he commented. "It's part of the reason I gave up. I may like cleaning, but even I don't want to polish and perfect the same room every single day."

"Ve~ what's that you're holding?"

Kid sat down on the dust-free floor and allowed the book to fall open in his lap.

"It's a photo album," he told the temporary janitor. "It's strange: some of these pictures are so old that I don't remember them being taken. I don't even recall the last time I could come up here without nearly having a heart attack."

Italy finished scrubbing the floor and took the bucket from where it had sat next to the duster, and then picked up the mucky, sopping towels with the end of the broom handle and dropped them in with a disgusting and yet strangely satisfying squelching noise. He neatly laid down the broom next to the bucket and walked over to where Kid was seated to look over his shoulder.

He quite was surprised to see that the first picture wasn't a photograph, but a rather rough-looking sketch on a square of parchment so old that it had faded from its original creamy white colour to the same yellowish-gold of Kid's eyes. It showed a very happy looking Lord Death showing the artist a peace symbol with his blocky foam-like fingers whilst cradling, in his other hand, a newborn child wrapped in a white blanket. It could only have been Kid: no other baby could have scowled so angrily at whoever drew it.

"Wow," Italy sighed. "Looks like you were a pretty angry baby."

"I suppose I was," said Kid. "Father says that I never had more or less than eight toys at any given time in my childhood."

"Ve~ why eight? You seem to like that number quite a lot. No, wait: it's something to do with symmetry, right?"

Kid nodded almost imperceptibly as he turned a page, revealing an equally old picture of a baby version of himself trying (and apparently failing) to find a way to stack eight small wooden blocks into a perfectly symmetrical pyramid.

"Aside from zero, eight is the only number which can but cut in half either vertically or horizontally and yet remain perfectly symmetrical," he explained, eyes glazing over as he was lost in his little world of figure-8 butterflies.

"What about diagonal?"

And, just as quickly, he was whisked back to the land of the living.

"What did you just say?" he demanded.

"I don't think even the number eight would be symmetrical if you cut it in half like _that_," said Italy, motioning with his hands, "or like _that_, so why do you-"

Kid's hand flashed into the air – the universal sign for "stop what you're saying this instant" which is recognised by every creature on the planet – and quickly bit back the fresh tirade which had been on the verge of spewing forth. The mental dam started to creak under the growing pressure.

Luckily, it was unneeded, as Italy quickly shut his mouth.

The next picture was obviously a little more recent, because it was an actual photograph. It was still pretty old, though: the kind of picture taken by a camera which required an extra-strong tripod, had to be carried around in a suitcase and the photographer had to duck underneath a small curtain so that he could see what he was doing. Kid looked a little older – old enough to have hair which clearly showed the three bold white stripes – and was curiously eyeing a butterfly that had landed on his nose.

"Ve~ you look so cute!" Italy cooed. "You don't look anything like the meanie-pants you are now!"

Someone open the spillways…

"I have somewhere to be," Kid said suddenly. He abruptly stood up, put the album back and left the attic.

Italy watched him go.

'That was weird,' he thought. 'For a moment there he actually looked… sad? Like he was remembering stuff? No, there's a word for that – aw, what is it? Nosferatu? No, that's not it, that's that super scary movie America made me watch for a dare. Um… nostrilla? That sounds kinda nosy, so that can't be it. Nostalgia! That's it! When you think about stuff that happened a long time ago but you're all sad about it!'

Italy didn't quite understand why Kid would be sad looking at those pictures. Ever since his Grandpa Rome had disappeared, his life had felt like one great big centuries-long battle, whether it be to survive, to keep his friends from fighting each other to just to get his next bowl of pasta. By the looks of things, Kid had it easy.

Something else occurred to him which hadn't before.

How old was Kid anyway?

He took out the album, found the earliest picture – the one of Lord Death holding the angry baby Kid – and read the caption underneath:

_Welcome to the world, Kiddo!_

_August 8__th__, 1856_

Italy's eyes widened in shock. He looked from the caption to the hole Kid had disappeared through, then back to the caption, and over and over again until his neck started to hurt.

'1856?' His mind couldn't process the idea, let alone the fact that… '_1856?! _But- but that makes him at least a hundred and fifty- but he looks like a teenager- but he looks even younger than I do- but he- but he's not a nation- but- BUT-'

He didn't remain conscious long enough to feel his body hit the floor.

* * *

"…didn't even know there was an attic."

"Yeah, just look at this place, it's _huge!_"

"I wonder what kind of things Kid's been stashing away up here? Some of it must be pretty damn valuable. Think he'd miss any of it?"

"Sis, it's Kid! He'd freak out if a dust speck was missing!"

"Hmm, that's a good point. And we can't steal those candlesticks from downstairs either, he likes those. Dammit! All this awesome stuff and we can't pawn a single thing!"

"Hey, I think he's waking up!"

Face screwed up in discomfort, Italy started to rub his eyes. The back of his head was hurting, but not like it had that time when he was shot: this time it felt more like he had been hit with something heavy. He felt the ground and discovered that it was made up of floorboards. When he looked up, he saw Liz and Patty standing and/or sitting over him with faces of concern.

"Italy?" said Liz. "You okay?"

The young nation groaned and felt the back of his head, which now more a small lump.

"Ve~ I think I fainted," he complained. "Hit my head on the floor, too. Hurts."

Patty noticed the open album lying on the ground and picked it up.

"Wow, no wonder!" she cried. "Sis, look at this!"

She stood up, staring intently at the open book in her arms, and Liz craned over her shoulder to see what she was so surprised at.

"1856?" she said. "Is that the year he was born? But that makes him… hang on." She started counting on her fingers, silently mouthing mathematics as she tried to work out her meister's exact age.

"…156 years old!" she finished. "Or maybe 155, I'm not sure what month it is right now, but that's still pretty damn old!"

Patty smiled.

"He looks really angry but super adorable!" she cried. "I wonder what he's scowling at."

"Knowing him, something petty," said Liz, "but that's not important right now. Italy, do you know where he went or where he could be?"

Italy sat up, confused.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Kid, you idiot!" Liz helped him to his feet. "He shoulda come home right after he checked on us, right? But he wasn't here when he got back and as far as we can tell, he's not in the house at all! And in all the time we've been looking for him he still hasn't come back!"

"Ve~ I don't know where he went! I really don't!" Italy insisted. "A little it after I finished cleaning he-"

"_You_ were cleaning?" Liz asked incredulously.

"I couldn't think of anything else to do!" Italy exclaimed. "I had already looked around the whole house and when I came up here into the attic there was dust everywhere and the windows were dirty so I thought I might clean it up a bit and see if it made Kid happy! And then just before I finished he started looking at these pictures and when I said he was really cute when he was little he just got up and left! He didn't say where he was going or how long he would be! I'm telling the truth, I swear! Please don't hurt me!"

Liz and Patty stared at him for a moment before Liz buried her face in her hand with a heavy sigh.

"We're gonna have to look for him," she decided.

"Ve~ but couldn't we just call Lord De-"

"NO DAMN WAY!" Liz shouted Italy down. "We can't say anything to him, okay? He'll be totally pissed off and we'll get the blame for it. First off: Patty, you go search up at the school, okay? Maybe he went up there, I dunno, but it seems like somewhere we ought to check."

"Got it!" said Patty. She saluted and ran away.

"What about you and me?" asked a now-rather-frightened Italy.

"I'm gonna stay here in case he comes back," said Liz, indicating herself with her thumb before turning a finger on the nervous nation. "You can go search around the rest of the city. I don't care where you start looking, so long as you start somewhere, so GO!"

With speed he always reserved specially for running away, Italy sped out of the attic, through the house and out into the cold desert evening.

It didn't take long for the cold to wash over him – it felt like a freezing tidal wave of air. Italy felt as though his very bones were turning into long rods of ice, and shivered like somebody had just walked over his grave. Even though the sun was still in the sky, it was low enough to cast long shadows which acted like patches of ice, chilling what once had been broiling. He rubbed his hands together, trying to prevent his fingers numbing, and ran into the city, becoming thankful that his neck wasn't cold because of the scarf Liz had bought him.

'I won't say I completely understand how Russia feels,' he thought, 'but I think I'm beginning to.'

He shook off another shiver as he reached the street from earlier, where that pretty girl had given him her phone number. It was empty now, with everyone who was out there a few hours ago probably huddled up inside in front of a television. The shadows were long and haunting, and Italy feared that a monster may be lurking somewhere, preparing to jump out at him.

'Ve~ I really don't like this,' he thought as he ran. 'This place is massive, it's like a city was carved out a giant mountain in the middle of the desert and Kid could be anywhere! What if I never find him and he comes after me but it's centuries later so he's a super-duper old man and he's all freaky and he curses me so that my ears fall off and my nose runs away and joins the circus? Maybe that's a bit unlikely, but I have to find him to make triple-sure it doesn't happen!'

He passed a bar, wherein several men were seated drowning their sorrows in what a sophisticated man may call liquor or spirits, but a commoner would call booze. The light was warm and welcoming, but Italy dashed past at the speed of fear. To be drunk was the last thing he needed right now, and the first thing he needed was to find Kid.

"KID, WHERE ARE YOU?!" he screamed, as though he was expecting a reply. There wasn't one, but isn't that the sort of thing you do if you're desperately searching for somebody?

'I really hope he's not hurt!' he thought. 'He might be kinda mean and hard to understand sometimes, and he might have some really bad obsessive compulsive disorder, but I can tell he's a good person at heart! He gave Liz and Patty a home, didn't he? And he could've just left and let me die when I got hurt, but he didn't! He let me stay in his house and gave me a place to sleep: he even bandaged up my injured arm! I'll never be able to forgive myself if I can't find him!'

He stopped and hunched over, panting, trying to catch his breath.

He was next to the pretty fountain where he had eaten ice cream with Liz and Patty. It was amazing how the spurting droplets of water caught the light and sparkled light diamonds, then plopped into the pool below to be carried through the pipes inside the stonework and sprayed out again.

Italy straightened up and took a deep breath.

"_KIIIIIIIIIIIID!_" he bellowed.

Weakened by his relentless running, his legs failed him and he slumped to the still-slightly-warm ground. He buried his face in his hands, trying and failing to stem the flow of the tears which poured like tiny rivers from his eyes.

'I'll never be able to find him,' he thought. 'This city is so big and I'm just one person who can't ever do anything right!'

He sniffed and wiped his nose and eyes on his sleeve.

"Hey, are you okay, mister?"

Italy froze.

He looked up, scanning the area for whoever could have spoken, but the only thing besides himself who was anywhere close was a dark grey cat with golden eyes which was sitting on the side of the fountain frowning at him. If it wasn't a cat, Italy would almost think it looked concerned.

It was wearing a witch's hat.

"Ve~ is somebody there?" he called, looking over his shoulder.

"Nope," said the voice again, "just me and you, cutie."

Okay, that was definitely coming from where the cat was sitting. When Italy looked again, he saw that it was washing its ears and smiling at him-

Wait, _smiling?_

"Are you…" he said slowly, "Are you a talking cat?"

"Bingo!" said the cat with a happy smile. "Say, could you do me a favour?"

"Ve~ I'm kinda looking for someone right now," Italy explained, "but I can if it won't take long."

"I hope it won't," said the cat, "'coz I've got some snoozing to do and then I gotta take a bath. Could you scratch me?"

Italy paused.

Just how were you supposed to scratch a talking cat – particularly one which, judging by the voice, was a lady cat – without feeling like some sort of creepy pervert like the ones in Germany's DVDs? Maybe he should just- maybe he should go for it and hope for the best.

"Okay," he said, "where?"

"Just here," said the cat: she stood up and indicated, with a forepaw, a spot on her back just before the base of her tail. "I'd do it myself, but I can never reach properly and it's embarrassing to it in public. Be a gentleman and take care of it for me, could you?"

Italy nodded, reached forward and started to scratch the kitty's back. She arched up into the air, mewling in happiness and satisfaction and groaning in what could almost be described as pleasure.

"Ooh," she cooed, "that feels nice. You can stop now, if you like."

And he did.

"Anyway," said the cat, and she started to wash behind her ears, "you said you were looking for someone, right? Well, since you helped me with my problem, why don't I help you?"

"Ve~ would you do that?" asked Italy, cheering up considerably.

"Sure!" the cat replied. "I know this city like the back of my paw. You just tell me what this guy looks like, I bet I'll have seen him around here somewhere, and you can find him and be home in time for dinner!"

Italy felt as though Christmas had come early.

"He's a teenager," he explained, "and he's kinda on the short side – shorter than me anyway. He's really pale, like he's not even living in a city in the middle of a desert, and he's wearing this really neat suit as if he's some kind of big business guy. And his hair is super-ultra-mega black except for these three white stripes he has on the left. Have you seen anyone like that?"

The cat raised a pondering paw to her mouth.

"I think I did," she said. "I was chasing some mice not far from here and I'm pretty sure I saw a guy with stripy hair. Would you like me to show you?"

"_Si!_" Italy cried as he leapt to his feet. "A thousand times _si! Grazie, grazie, grazie _so much!"

"Then follow me!" said the cat, and she jumped down from the fountain and ran off down the street. Resolve restrengthened, Italy ran after her, pouring every last ounce of his remaining hope into the fact that this strange talking kitty could show him where Kid was and save him from certain terror.

"By the way," the cat called back as she scampered over the cobbles, "you never actually told me your name!"

"It's Feliciano," said Italy, opting for his human name rather than his real one. "Feliciano Vargas. You can call me Feli if you like, though!"

"That's cute!" the cat said. "You can call me Blair!"

* * *

"Stop here!"

Italy skidded to a halt.

He was now standing in front of the bar he had passed just earlier. There was a window, but the glass was frosted and all he could see were silhouettes of the patrons inside. It still looked warm and inviting, but the young man realised something else: strangely enough, it was foreboding as well.

Was Kid inside?

"I saw a kid with a fancy suit and stripy hair heading into this place about four hours ago," said Blair, pointing with her paw. "He looked _way_ too young to be going anywhere near a place like that, but he had a kinda weird expression on his face. Like he was… I dunno, worried?"

Italy breathed a sigh of relief.

"_Grazie_, Blair!" he said, and walked towards the door.

"Hey, wait!"

He paused and stepped away from the building, looking down at the little cat which was sitting patiently on the cobbled road.

"_Si_, what is it?" he asked.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a large puff of pinkish-purple smoke. Italy stepped away, wondering whether or not he should turn tail and run for his life. Blair was in the centre of that cloud. Was she going to be okay?

Then a tall beautiful woman with long, purple hair, golden eyes, scanty and sexy clothes, VERY large breasts and purple cat ears (plus a witch's hat in one hand) stepped out of the cloud, seized the severely confused nation by the back of the neck and pulled him into a long, deep, romantic-feeling kiss.

Italy didn't know whether to be happy or frightened.

Eventually it ended, and she leaned forward and whispered in his ear:

"See you later, cutie pie."

He froze at the sound of her voice.

This sexy lady was _Blair?!_

She turned and started to walk away, wiggling her bottom seductively, but the effect was somewhat ruined by Italy's imagination producing a long, furry tail which protruded from her lower back, even when she turned around and winked at him.

'Welcome to Death City,' said a little voice in Italy's head, 'where people can turn into surprisingly versatile weapons and cats can turn into pretty ladies who wear almost nothing and would therefore probably give Greece a heart attack and totally give France a run for his money or life.'

There were more important things to worry about right now, i.e. what was Kid doing in a bar?

He pushed the door open.

The room was as warm and inviting as it had looked from the outside. It was lit in shades of muted yellow and gold, the kind of colours that come from a fire on a freezing winters' night. The walls were painted in the same golden-yellow, contrasting with the polished deep-brown bar, at which several men were seated, hunched over and nursing glasses of beer (for the younger, newer ones), whiskey (for the older and more experienced alcoholics) or martinis (for those who actually weren't entirely sure what they were doing).

Most of the glasses were standing in a small ocean around a diminutive teenage Grim Reaper who was sprawled haphazardly over the bar, drooling onto the woodwork. He was still conscious, but judging by the smell coming off him which was more pungent than dying cheese and the sheer number of empty cups that surrounded him, he was incredibly, unbelievably, inconceivably drunk.

"Ve~ Kid!" Italy exclaimed, running over to him and shaking his shoulder. "Kid, are you okay? Say something! Speak to me!"

"Are you here to take him out?" asked the barman rudely. "If so, thank you very damn much! He's gone through my entire supply of vodka, absinthe AND tequila and I only get shipments every other month! Kept saying stuff like 'it has to work, this time I'm sure it'll work, nothing else has worked' and I don't know how old he is, but when I asked him he told me to just give him some alcohol or he'd shoot me!"

Italy pulled Kid into a sitting position. His head lolled around on his shoulders and he moaned disconcertingly, eyes slowly opening and closing like he was trying to blink, but couldn't quite figure out how.

"Italy…" he groaned.

"Don't bother paying," the barman said bitterly. "Whatever you give me will never be enough to cover this."

It didn't take long for Italy to realise what he would have to do here. Germany had done it to him plenty of times, so naturally he would have experience of a sort. He leaned forward until he was almost bent double, took Kid's arm and pulled him over his shoulder, carrying him fireman-style.

"Ve~ he isn't hurt, is he?" he asked.

The barman gave him a look which said 'You must be new here' and started polishing a glass while muttering something about ruins.

Italy left the bar and paused for a moment in the street.

"Wuzz goin' on?" Kid said blurrily.

"You must be really drunk," said Italy. "I'm taking you home, okay? Liz and Patty are really worried about you." He started to walk back down the street towards Gallows Manor… hopefully. The scenery had been moving too quickly for him to get a proper look around.

"Shouldn't be," replied the plastered reaper, who apparently was still coherent enough to hold a passable conversation. "Shouldn't worry 'bout me. No one else does."

"Ve~ what do you mean?" Italy asked, noting that the teenager felt worryingly lightweight on his shoulder. "Of course people care about you!"

"Respect me," Kid corrected bitterly. "Grim Reaper's son. Obbling… obbly… something… feel the need to."

Curious, Italy decided that rather than trying to counter Kid's ramblings, he should just listen.

"Too much… it's too much. I-I can't. Just _can't_. So much. Too much. Gotta be… be a meister… gotta be a… a good son… gonna be Grim Reaper someday… just… _can't_… want to…"

"Kid," said Italy quietly as he stopped walking, "what are you talking about?"

There was a sob.

Kid was _crying_.

"I want it to stop," he moaned. "So much pressure to be perfect, but I can't be! I'll never be perfect! I just want it to end, and I really thought it would work this time! About 79,000 people die from alcohol poisoning each year, so why couldn't I help in pushing it up to 80,000?"

Italy felt as though a tonne of bricks had hit him on the head. Surely he didn't mean…

He walked over to a nearby alleyway entrance and set Kid on the ground, sitting with his back to the wall. The heavily inebriated reaper put up no resistance as Italy took one of his arms, pushed up the sleeves and started to slowly unwind the bandage which was wrapped around it.

"So I've been trying," Kid confessed when he was almost done. "I've been trying to make it stop."

With a gasp of horror, Italy let the gauze fall from his fingers.

There was a red mark on the young reaper's lower arm, just below the base of his hand. It was a thin line which reached almost halfway around his wrist, quite clearly covering most of the more obvious veins which were there. Without unwrapping or even touching it, Italy subconsciously knew that his other arm would be exactly the same.

Slowly and carefully, as though his arm weighed the same as a car, Kid reached up and removed the skull brooch which sat in place of a tie. He moved his collar aside, revealing a rash-like mark which stretched around his lower neck.

"This was my first try," he explained. "Back before I found Liz and Patty. Waited until the middle of the night, then I went to Hook Cemetery. Lots of hooks dangling off the trees. Perfect if someone wanted to end their life. Didn't work for me though. Hung there for three hours. Got bored. Went home."

He closed his collar, but didn't seem to have the strength to replace his brooch.

"There's no other way out," he said as his wretched sobs resumed. "I can't run away because the DWMA has branches all over the world and Father would be able to find me in hours. Hours! And-and if I tell Father that I don't want to take his place, what kind of son would I be? Especially when fighting and symmetry are the only things I truly understand in this world: I don't know anything about running a school or-or things like that! What are you supposed to think or do when death feels like the only way out? Please help me, I'm so scared, I don't know what to do-!"

He was cut off quite suddenly.

See, Italy had been listening to every word he was saying and was, at first, wondering what he could do or say to make Kid feel better, but after seeing the extent of the reaper's negative feelings, he was lost for words and had no idea what to do. His levels of self-doubt and terror were such as he had never seen before: not in a nation or one of his bosses or any of his subjects.

Nobody he knew had ever tried to commit suicide, let alone with the level of determination that Kid possessed. Italy wanted him to stop talking. To stop making Italy feel even more useless than he knew he already was, because there was probably nothing he could do about this. All he knew that if Kid didn't stop talking soon, Italy was going to have to make him stop. But how could he do that without using violence or shouting at him?

And so he did it. He used the only 'shut up' technique he knew which didn't involve physical or verbal violence on any level:

He kissed Kid.

On the mouth.

It only lasted for a few seconds, but it was enough not only to shock the teenage reaper into silence, but also move him a few steps closer to sobriety. He was still a long way off, but he was getting there.

Once the kiss was over, Italy pressed Kid against the wall by the shoulders, barely allowing him to move if at all, and there was something… different about him. Despite his lips being tightly sealed, he was clearly gritting his teeth, and anyone watching would swear that he grew slightly larger and more muscular. His eyes had changed, too: deep down inside, just visible through those caramel-coloured windows, something ominous and foreboding was stirring, getting ready to either kill or be killed…

…and in an instant it was gone. Italy's face, to put it briefly, collapsed. He practically fell onto Kid and wrapped him in a tight, almost choking hug.

"Please don't," he said with his voice more cracked than a dropped egg. "Don't talk about yourself like that. I hate when people are so brilliant but they hate themselves and they can't tell how great they are. And I hate it when people I know get hurt or die. Especially when there's nothing I can do about it, so please stop it! Stop it! Just stop it!"

He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"You don't have to be perfect," he continued. "You can be if you want, but that's beside the point! Nobody expects you to be perfect, they just want you to be you! And anyway, if you died, what would happen to everybody else? What would happen to Liz and Patty, would they just stay in that big empty house all by themselves? Would they have to go back to living on the street and robbing people just so they could get food? And what would happen to your father? How do you think he'd feel if you died?"

"Italy," Kid tried to counter, "You don't know what you're talkin-"

"Yes I do!" Italy cried with alarming force. "My grandfather, my Grandpa Rome, he made himself so big and powerful that he couldn't keep up with the strain of being a great big massive empire and eventually it led to his death! And I loved my Grandpa Rome more than anything! So please… please… _don't. _You don't know what it's like… to lose someone…"

Even in his drunken, hyper-emotional state, Kid could tell that Italy was doing everything in his power to hold back tears and still failing spectacularly.

They sat there for a moment, doing almost nothing. Italy leaned into Kid's shoulder, soaking his perfect suit with teardrops, and Kid stared blankly out into space.

After a while, Italy wiped his face on his sleeve and stood up, offering the young reaper his hand. Kid took it and was pulled to his feet, but came dangerously close to falling over and ended up having to be carried, piggy-back, by Italy.

"Ve~ Germany was always carrying me out of trouble," Italy said wistfully. "I don't remember what happened, but it's Germany, so I'm sure he's not just _buono_, he's _eccellente_. What do you think, Kid?"

Kid just made a snuffling noise. He had fallen asleep.

Italy smiled. He wasn't crying anymore.

"It's okay," he said. "You just sleep, Kid. I'll tell you later."

He didn't doubt anymore that he was definitely out of his depth. Ever since he had first met Kid, he had felt himself bombarded with new and strange emotions and prospects of human potential. Back there, in the alleyway, he had almost let himself become _angry_. And right now, carrying the young reaper home and leaving a trailing scent of booze in his wake: this was what they called _responsibility_, right?

It had only been a couple of days, but Death City was changing Italy, and he wasn't sure if it was for the better.

* * *

Darkness.

So much darkness. There was only one window. It was tiny. Barely even enough light to see his hand in front of his face. Not enough light to see all the details of this room, this prison, this… dungeon.

Cold. Cold stone. Cold wall. Cold floor. Cold sweat on his forehead, sticking to his loose, untidy hair.

Door.

He started moving. Tried to get to the door, but stopped. Pain. So much pain. Felt like his back was on fire.

Wincing upon every movement, he dragged himself to the door. Pressed his ear against it. Tried to listen. Tried to hear if someone else was out there. Someone who could tell him what was going on. Someone who could let him out. Someone who could help him escape or at least let him have some water.

"…still only a kid, but don't underestimate him. We need to get him while his guard is down. If his partners are there, they'll only cause trouble."

Who were they talking about?

"But Death City is a pretty damn secure place. I'll bet the moment we set foot in that place there'll be a horde of meisters on our tail in ten seconds, max!"

Meister. Means master. German. Why? And what was this Death City they spoke of? Who were they, anyway?

"Don't let them fool you. Lord Death may be the Grim Reaper and all, but it's been centuries since he was anything other than a bouncing idiot. This whole operation is gonna be a piece of cake."

His fist clenched against the flame-hardened wood. These men were planning to hurt someone – by the sounds of things, a child. Disgusting. Cowardly. They deserved to be destroyed in the most painful way possible for even thinking about something like this.

"No, get this: my guy in America says this kid's taking care of someone. You won't believe me when I tell you that it's one of _them_."

Them. The way he said it. Meaning what?"

"Really? Which one?"

Yes, which one?

"The one her ladyship let slip. The one she was about to take down before that reaper brat showed up. The one who was trotting alongside Mt Blondie as if he were his little lap dog or something."

Italy.

"Well, no matter. From what I've heard, that guy couldn't win a fight against a wet tissue. Remember that it was only thanks to the reaper brat's interference that her ladyship is in this dilemma in the first place, and we must retrieve her at all costs. Feel free to waste him if he gets in the way. He'll only cause more trouble if you don't."

Waste him. Meaning kill him. Kill Italy. He pulled back his fist and punched the door, but it was too thick and too old to give way and only hurt his hand. He groaned, rubbing his bruised knuckles, certain something had broken. No matter. It would heal quickly enough.

There was a knock on the door.

"Finally awake, eh?"

He was too angry to answer beyond an incomprehensible growl.

"Hate to tell you, Blondie, but you know that little friend of yours? The one in blue who wouldn't shut up? Pretty soon he'll be taking a 24/7 dirt nap, and you know what? There's nothing you can do about it."

He found his voice. Ignored his pain. Poured his rage into pounding against the seemingly unbreakable door.

"YOU _SCHWEIN!_" he screamed. "YOU JUST TRY TO HURT A HAIR ON ITALY'S HEAD! I'LL MAKE YOU REGRET IT, YOU _SCHEIßKERL_!"

"Ooh, Blondie's soooo scary! What're you going to do, huh? Punch me in the face through a 12-inch-thick solid oak door? Good luck with that, you stupid-ass Kraut!"

Mocking laughter. He growled again.

Retreating footsteps. They were gone. He fell backwards. Let the cold floor soothe his burning back. May have reopened the wounds. Hard to tell.

"_Scheiße_," he muttered under his breath. "Idiotic fools."

Might as well try to sleep. He would need rest if these wounds were ever to heal. If.

"Italy," he said quietly, "wherever you are, I beg of you: watch yourself."

* * *

**Ever do something and then sit back and just think "Whoa. Did I really just do that?!" 'Coz that's how I felt after writing this chapter. Especially the last section - the one everybody was so worried about last week - where I promised to reveal what had become of Germany. Now you know.**

**Also, I think this chapter establishes this story as the longest of all the Hetalia/Soul Eater crossovers on this website, if not the entire Internet. I actually printed it off and bound it in a ring binder folder and it was almost 250 pages long! So yeah: you guys have got a lot to look forward to over the coming weeks. This story is almost half over and I can't wait for you guys to find out what's going to happen!**

**Next chapter... the second half will probably feel like a punch in the gut. Just sayin'.**

**Beoordelingen zijn welkom!**


	9. Bumping Back

If Death the Kid had been shot and stabbed in the head whilst being bludgeoned with a sledgehammer and forced to listen to the complete discography of Justin Bieber, it would still have been nowhere near as painful as the headache which pounded into his skull when he awoke the next morning. It was as though his very mind was screaming in agony, and at that moment he swore that as long as he lived, he was never going to touch a single drop of alcohol. Ever. Again. It wouldn't have been so bad were this not the second night in a row that he woke up feeling like a tank had run over his cranium.

The door opened and the elder of his two partners peered inside.

"Kid? You awake?"

He rubbed his ears with a groan.

"Liz," he muttered, "why are you shouting so loudly? Have I done something to upset you?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Liz. "I'm not shouting. I just wanted to know if you were going to wake up today, seeing as it's already half past nine and you're usually up a whole hour and a half before now. In other words, get your ass out of bed."

Kid just groaned again, so Liz decided to take action in the cruellest way possible:

She opened the drapes.

With a pained groan worthy of the heavens, Kid all but vanished beneath his plain white, pristine, absolutely featureless quilt. Liz whisked the sheet away, revealing his curled up pyjama-clad body, but he just thumped a pillow over his head.

"Make the light shut up!" he moaned.

With an exasperated growl, Liz ripped the pillow out of his hands so tightly that it almost tore in two, so he buried his face in his hands in an effort to drive out the blinding sunlight.

"Kid," she said angrily, "Italy told us what you said."

Her meister squinted up at her.

"Oh?" he said questioningly.

"Yeah."

She whacked him over the head with the pillow.

"HOW! COULD! YOU! DO! SOME! THING! LIKE! THAT!" she screamed, punctuating her words with blows to Kid's already agonised head. "What the hell were you THINKING?! Trying to booze yourself to death? Cutting your wrists? Hanging yourself? What the hell is wrong with you, why would you even think about trying to _do_ that?"

Kid lowered the arms he had raised to protect himself.

"Try to understand," he muttered, "I may be a Grim Reaper but I'm still little more than a child. And I'd really, really appreciate it if you could please leave me alone because right now I have the hangover to end all hangovers and it's not exactly pleasant."

Liz rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said, throwing the pillow at his face. "Screw you, you can just lay there and die for all I care. Right now I gotta go and get ready for work thanks to you."

She turned to leave.

"Liz?"

"Crapping hell, what is it now?"

"Is anybody using the bathroom right now?"

"Not last time I checked. Patty's getting dressed and Italy's sitting on his bed drawing."

"Excellent."

"Why is it excellent?"

"I'm going to be sick."

* * *

First came the nose: the centre of the face, around which all else revolved like a miniature solar system. He traced a semi-curved line near the centre of the page and carefully sketched a pair of nostrils underneath, lovingly tracing every hair and every detail of shadow. One of the vital parts of drawing was remembering where the light source was, where the illumination in the image was coming from. You couldn't just splatter shadows every which way and expect it to look nice.

Next, there were the eyes: the windows to the soul through which a whole world could be viewed and experienced. He drew a curved line next to the top of the nose, flicking the pencil off the paper to create eyelashes, and brought it back to where it started. A tiny squiggle in the corner became the tear duct, and two more curves and a black dot finalised the eye. He also added shading, a little oval of white in the iris as a glint of light and a crease to show the eyelid, then repeated the whole process on the other side of the nose.

The expression in the eyes was stern and firm looking, but at the same time, it was soft and somewhat understanding, with kindness if you looked at it the right way. It was an expression he had become used to these past decades and it was one that he longed to see again. He wanted to see these eyes for real. He wanted it so much it _hurt_.

Then there was the mouth, complete with soft lips and a slight curve at one side to indicate a smile. People were always more attractive when they smiled. It was so strange that the person being drawn hardly ever smiled, but when he did, his entire demeanour changed from a big scary soldier to a soft-hearted guardian who, if you really knew him, was actually clueless when it came to interaction with others – he had a nasty tendency to treat them like he was angry at them – and sometimes he was even a bit of a dork.

It was cute.

He went through the rest of the features like a breeze. Eyebrows. A jaw so well-chiselled you could use it as a ruler and draw straight lines with it. Ears. Hair which was slicked away from the face without a single strand left loose. Shading with everything, of course.

Then he drew the neck, the collar of a uniform, a pair of shoulders… and that was it. Nothing else was needed. The person was identifiable without needed to be drawn in his entirety.

As a finishing touch, a single word was added at the bottom in neat cursive:

_Germany._

His drawing finished, Italy hugged the paper to his chest and lay back on his bed, heaving a sigh of purest longing.

It felt like forever since he had seen him. Sure, it had probably been less than a week, but since Italy couldn't remember much about the events leading up to him waking up with Kid bandaging his arm, it felt like years. Decades. Whenever he tried to think back upon what happened, all he saw was blurred scenery. He must have been running a little faster than he usually did. Maybe he was being chased by someone or something, but he couldn't recall what.

A loud retching noise caught his attention. It sounded like Kid. It would seem that the young reaper's encounter with alcohol was coming back to bite him very, very hard – hard enough, hopefully, to convince him to never attempt anything like that again.

Even in here, his nostrils picked up the stench of recycled vodka. It grew exponentially stronger as the door opened and Liz half-entered the room.

"Word of advice," she said, "try to steer clear of Kid. Whatever that stuff's done to him, it sure isn't pretty."

"Ve~ I can smell it from here," said Italy, gripping his nose. "It's really gross."

"You sure you'll be okay if you stay here with him?" asked Liz. Despite her anger, she was concerned about Kid and hoped that he was going to be alright. Maybe she should have laid off with the pillow.

Italy gave her a reassuring bright-eyed smile.

"I'll be fine!" he said happily. "You should go; you don't want to be late for work, right?"

At the sight of his wide and joyful eyes, Liz couldn't help but smile back.

Once she was gone, Italy went back to frowning at the ceiling. He raised the picture up so that he could see the face of the man he missed more than anything in the whole world.

"Ve~ I miss you," he said, hoping that the drawing of Germany would somehow come to life and reply. "But you already knew that, right? 'Coz I'd miss you even if you were gone for only a few seconds. You already figured that out way back in the 50s 'coz you're so much smarter than I'll ever be."

He hadn't been expecting an answer, but was still rather disappointed when there wasn't one.

"I know you're probably worrying about me right now," he continued nonetheless, "but you don't need to be. Ve~ I'm staying with some people who acted like they were tough and mean when I first met them, but they're really nice once you get used to them! The girls Liz and Patty got me some new clothes to replace my uniform 'coz it got torn up and covered in blood and the boy, Death the Kid, he didn't like that because it meant my uniform wasn't symmetrical. And Germany, he _really_ likes symmetry."

Italy paused in his exposition, his face falling into a frown.

"He tried to kill himself last night," he explained. "I found him in a bar and he was so drunk he could barely even keep his eyes open. Then he started crying. He told me that he was under lots of pressure from everyone around him and didn't know how to deal with it and that killing himself felt like the only way out. It makes me sad that anyone could feel that way, let alone the son of the Death himself. I'm glad I managed to stop him before he really did kill himself: I don't know what anyone in this place would have done without him."

There was another loud retching noise and the smell of second-hand alcohol became stronger.

"Ve~ he probably wishes it worked right now," Italy commented.

He rolled over onto his stomach, laying the picture flat on the mattress, and gently stroked where there should have been soft skin. Instead there was only smooth paper which made his fingers feel dry.

"I bet you were trying to save me again," he said. "I bet we were attacked by some bad guy or some nasty monster and you were trying to stop me from getting hurt again. I guess it didn't quite work this time, but I'm still alive, so you must have done something right. Right?"

'Please say something,' he thought desperately. 'I need to hear your voice, Germany. I need you to tell me you're okay and everything's going to be alright. You can even shout at me to stop being so much of a coward if you like. Please, just say something! _Anything!_'

Now he was just depressing himself. Germany wouldn't want him to get depressed.

He was thirsty now.

"See you later, Germany," he sighed, and he left the picture on the bed.

* * *

Kid came downstairs about three quarters of an hour later, still in his pyjamas, carrying his quilt wrapped around his shoulders and wearing a pair of very dark sunglasses. Without saying a word to Italy, who was leaning on the sideboard sipping from a cup of coffee, he took a bag of ice out of the freezer and gently placed it on his aching head.

"Ah," he sighed, "that's much better."

He looked around at Italy. The young nation was today dressed in a rather simple fashion: black hoodie, dull jeans, ordinary running shoes and a red T-shirt visible through the collar of his hoodie. He was watching Kid with a curious expression over the rim of his cup.

"The hell are you looking at?" Kid snapped.

"Nothing!" Italy yelped, turning away hurriedly. "Ve~ how are you feeling? Doing okay?"

"I just spent the past forty-five minutes bent double over a toilet bowl emptying my stomach contents into it until I was left dry-retching," was the deadpan reply. "My head feels like an elephant used it as a trampoline, every word you say sounds louder than a jet taking off, I have to wear sunglasses to avoid being blinded and overall I'm wishing that I'd never been born. And you're asking if I'm doing okay? I'm wondering right now if you actually have a brain rather than cotton wool inside that head of yours."

"So… you've been better?"

Kid fixed him with a glare.

"Eek!" Italy yelped again. "Please don't stare at me like that! Sweden stares at people like that and it's really scary only with you it's scarier because I can't even see your eyes and only feel you looking at me! Please stop staring at me, you're freaking me out!"

"Stop shouting," Kid groaned. "Ugh, I think I'll go back to bed. Right after I get this yellow gunk off my tongue."

He turned to leave.

"Hey Kid?"

He paused as Italy laid down his cup.

"Ve~ please promise me you're not going to try to kill yourself ever again," he requested, holding out his hand with his pinkie finger outstretched.

In any other situation, Kid would have scolded him for his asymmetrical position and brushed him off like a speck of dust, but since he felt like the air was trying to dance in his eardrums, he was in no mood to refuse. He hooked his finger around Italy's.

"_Buono_," the nation said with a smile. "Everybody's happy!"

'Shut the hell up,' thought Kid, and clutching the ice to his head, he started to make his way back upstairs.

"Ve~ Kid!"

"What is it _now?!_"

"Um. I was just wondering; do you have any colouring pencils I can use? It's just that I'm drawing and I don't want it all to be in black and white, so-"

"I think Patty may have hidden some in the bureau in your room if you'd care to check," said Kid. "Along with several rather asymmetrical drawings of giraffes which she thinks I don't know about."

"_Grazie!_"

"Oh, and one last thing: don't go outside tonight."

"Why not?"

"Apparently there's going to be a storm tonight. Desert storms are always rather violent, so make sure you don't do anything stupid."

Nothing more was said.

With his quilt trailing behind him like some strange royal robe, Kid ascended the stairs, and after using his toothbrush to remove a thick layer of yellow much from his tongue (god knows what it was or how it got there) he crawled back onto his bed and fell back to sleep.

Meanwhile, Italy turned Germany's eyes blue.

* * *

Hours passed, during which nothing particularly interesting happened. Italy drew several more portraits of his friends in the blank book he had found unused at the bottom of a crate in the attic, which was already returning to the realm of dust true to Kid's word. Liz and Patty returned home after another long day serving customers and almost instantly started to complain. Italy made pasta for dinner, but Kid didn't have any because he was still fast asleep in recovery from his hangover – which was probably a good thing because he might have been sick again. He did come down briefly for a glass of water, but retreated to his room again soon afterwards.

"Think he's turning into a hermit?" Liz had quipped.

"Does that mean he'll grow a beard?" Patty had asked. "Is Kid going to grow a beard?"

"Ve~ I hope not," Italy had replied. "Beards are kinda gross."

In short, it was what is known as a 'slow' day.

True to Kid's painfully-spoken words, clouds began to swirl in the sky at around half past eight in the evening, and half an hour later the thunder began. Rain lashed violently against the windows and thudded onto the roof like thousands of tiny creatures dancing.

In the tumbling rain, shadows began to make their move.

And at around half past midnight, Italy woke up.

After dinner he had retreated to his room to hide from the storm, and decided to continue with his portraits to pass the time. He had considered adding in a couple of little jokes here and there – for example, putting devil's horns on Russia's head or writing PERVERT ALERT in big multicolour letters above France – but decided against it. He wasn't that kind of person.

Hopefully, France wouldn't steal these and lock them up in his art museums.

He had fallen asleep face down, pencil in hand, still fully dressed with his arm resting across the open drawing pad. It was still raining; thunder still rumbled through the sky like the marching feet of a thousand soldiers, lightning flashed like gun muzzles. It brought back more than a few unpleasant memories for the young nation and he wished that it could stop already. They were in a desert. How much water does a sand dune need?

Boy, when it rained in Death City, it _really_ rained.

From the musty dry feeling inside his mouth, Italy decided that once again, he was thirsty. He wasn't going to get coffee again: it had been a decision he had come to regret most thoroughly because that stuff had given him rather a lot more energy than he had wanted it to. After finishing his portrait of Germany, it had taken fifteen full laps around the outside of Gallows Manor before the caffeine had worn off. Just some water would do this time.

'Ve~ at least Germany can't yell at me for not doing training this time,' he thought optimistically. 'I'm sure fifteen laps around this place is a pretty long way.'

However, as he navigated the perfect hallways, he couldn't help but feel that something was definitely and dreadfully wrong. Goosebumps ran all up and down his arm, and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, giving him the impression that he was being observed by eyes unseen.

And then, as he was going down the stairs, a wave of dizziness came to smack him in the side of the head. It was so strong that he nearly lost his footing, and only saved himself from a long and painful tumble by grabbing onto the railing so tightly that it almost splintered under his hand. It passed relatively quickly, but he was still being plagued by a nasty feeling of nausea. Maybe he had done something wrong while he was making pasta earlier?

'No,' he decided. 'I _never_ get pasta wrong. It's what I'm best at!'

By the time he reached the kitchen, Italy's head was spinning like crazy and he was using all of his willpower to avoid vomiting into the sink. He quickly grabbed a cup, filled it up at the tap and voraciously gulped down the cold clear liquid in less time than it takes to snap fingers.

That was better. He didn't feel quite as dizzy. Still dizzy, but not as much.

Also, his arm was feeling weird. His left arm, underneath the bandages, was tingling and itching. He wanted to scratch it, but he knew that he couldn't without causing himself intense agony.

'Maybe I should see if it feels better in the morning,' he thought. 'It's probably nothing… at least, I hope it's nothing. What if I removed the bandages and my arm had turned all green and gross and mouldy and they had to cut it off but didn't get enough and I died because of infection? I sure hope that doesn't happen because I won't get to go home or see Germany again and I probably won't be able to eat pasta if I only had one arm and I was dead! Do they have pasta in heaven? What if I don't go to heaven and there's a mix-up and I end up in hell? Or what if there's an even worse mix-up and I end up trapped in between heaven and hell or I just have to stay on earth as a ghost?'

Italy rubbed his forehead. All this thinking was making his brain feel weird. He refilled his cup and started to make his way back upstairs.

But in the entrance hall, his short journey was interrupted.

He should have known. He should have noticed that one of the shadows under the stairwell was a lot darker than it should have been. But as it was, Italy didn't notice the other person in the room until they pounced, pinning him against the wall with their hands around his neck.

Italy couldn't breathe. He could barely even move. He could feel his legs involuntarily kicking against the wall and floor, trying to gain some purchase, trying to get free, but it was to no avail. It wasn't the first time he had been strangled – not by a longshot – but that was by Romano, who was usually trying to punish him for something he had done wrong (such as eating all the pasta, mentioning his friendship with Germany, accidentally implying that Romano was reliant on Spain for everything, mentioning his friendship with Germany, stealing Romano's tomatoes and mentioning his friendship with Germany) and Romano had never actively tried to _kill_ Italy. It was always just to drive a message home.

This time was drastically different. Blotches of black were already appearing in his field of vision, and he started to panic, gasping desperately in an attempt to get oxygen into his lungs. Whatever happened, whatever he did, he needed to get _away_ from this person who was squeezing more and more tightly with every passing second.

"Please…" he choked, "let me go… please… I can't breathe… I can't… breathe…"

"That," his attacker snarled, "is the point."

Italy grabbed the man's arms, trying to pull them away from his neck or at least loosen their grip, and when that failed he started to smack at the wrists. The man just growled and squeezed tighter, pressing him into the wall.

So instead he reached out to one side, arm flailing wildly in the air, and his fingers closed around something cold and metallic.

* * *

At first, Kid wasn't sure what had awakened him. At first glance his room was empty, ordinary, perfectly symmetrical as it always had been and always should be. His headache had almost completely disappeared, leaving only a small, throbbing afterimage in the back of his skull, and he didn't feel nauseous anymore. That was good. If drinking meant experiencing something like that, no matter how much fun it was, he swore he was never touching a drop of alcohol again.

The downside was that his bed was now incredibly untidy, coupled with the fact that his pillow was soaking wet from the melted ice bag. He would have to thoroughly launder it before he could sleep on it again.

His body still felt incredibly heavy.

With every ounce of effort he had, he sat up, wondering what could have woken him. Maybe he had just slept enough? Maybe his body had had its fill of sleep and wasn't tired anymore?

No. That wasn't it. Something was definitely wrong.

Those shadows looked quite a bit darker than they usually were…

Lightning struck the ground outside, illuminating the silhouettes of several figures who were all standing around his bed.

Before he had a chance to act, they were upon him. Two of them grabbed his legs, two more seized his arms and all but one of the rest assisted in holding him down on his bed.

"Get off me!" he demanded. "I don't know who you are, but get OFF! LET ME GO THIS INSTANT!"

Something else occurred to him.

How many were there in the house altogether?

"LIZ!" he yelled. "PATTY!"

"Kid!" Patty shouted back. "Kid, we-"

She was cut off abruptly.

"Not another word," growled a voice in Kid's ear as a heavy, leather-gloved hand was clamped over his mouth, "or those two young ladies will go the same way as your curly-haired friend."

Oh no, _Italy…_

He couldn't move and could barely breathe with the hand on his face, and his panic doubled when he saw the one remaining – the one who wasn't helping to restrain him – produce a syringe. It was wide enough for several baseballs to roll down side-by-side with a needle a foot long and at least a centimetre and a half wide. It started to move in his direction.

"If you scream," he was warned, "or even think about trying to scream, you can stop worrying because we _will_ kill you. Understand?"

Even if he wanted to nod, Kid wouldn't have been able to.

A knife was produced and sliced through the shoulder of his pyjama shirt, then his sleeve was torn off and pulled down until it hung scrunched-up around his wrist. The sudden removal of his beloved symmetry caused his whole body to freeze, but he became even more tense as the thick needle pierced his arm.

The pain was unlike anything he'd ever experienced in his life, and he'd had a LOT of life and a near-equal amount of pain. Not even his semi-suicidal experiments could come close to comparing to this. It felt as though something was crawling, slithering, creeping up the inside of the bones in his arm. What made it worse was that he swore he could _hear_ the bones crackling and splintering, and feared that if he dared to open his eyes, which he had screwed up in agony, he would see that his arm was being deflated.

'Please,' he thought. 'Please let it end. Make it stop. Please! Or if you're going to do this to me, at least do my left arm as well! STOP!'

And then, just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Kid was left with a dull ache throughout his arm, which grew sharper into a torturing sting where the needle had entered.

"Did you get it?" asked one of the men who was holding him.

Kid cracked one eye open to see what was going on.

One of the invaders, the one holding the huge syringe, was eyeing the freshly procured contents. Most of it, the young reaper was horrified to see, was blood – _his_ blood – but swirling around in it, close to the centre, was a glowing red orb with a flame-like growth on the top. Kid quickly realised that it was the soul he had collected on the mission where he had met Italy. He had been so distracted with the new acquaintance that he had forgotten all about it.

"Yeah," said the man with the syringe. "This is the most recent. Unless he collected any others in the past few days."

A knife appeared at Kid's throat.

"You collected any new souls in the past few days, reaper brat?"

Kid moaned in fear and shook his head.

"Right," said the syringe-bearer. "Let's go."

And, just like that, Kid was released and fell limply back onto his bed as the strangers flooded out of his room. He didn't dare to move an inch until he felt their souls vanish from within his house, at which point he dared to look over at his right side.

The sleeve hanging loosely around his wrist allowed him a clear view of the large, deep hole which was happily pumping blood out of his upper arm. He knew he was in no terrible danger (his experiments had proved that blood loss wasn't an option when it came to the death of a Grim Reaper) but it hurt like hell and looked inconceivably untidy. He reached over, hand twitching, and pulled up his torn sleeve to cover the damage, but the blood soaked through and stained scarlet the fabric.

He heard footsteps approaching down the corridor and braced himself for another round of suffering, waiting for the appearance of…

…his partners, whom he was relieved to see were relatively untouched.

"Kid!" cried Liz as she and her little sister ran to their meister's side.

"Kid, are you okay?" asked Patty, the little-seen-by-her emotion called fear evident in her voice. "What happened to your arm? Is that blood? It's blood, isn't it? Say something!"

Still shivering in shock, Kid sat up and gulped, trying desperately to regain his composure.

"They had a massive syringe," he explained. "Biggest needle I've ever seen. Stuck it in my arm and pulled a soul out, I don't even know how that's possible. Couldn't have done my _other_ arm as well, of course."

"What?" asked Liz in confusion. "Why would they-"

From downstairs there came a scream of terror.

Ignoring Liz and Patty's pleas for him to remain and their warnings that he was in no shape to fight alone, Kid jumped to his feet and ran at full speed through Gallows Manor towards the source of the scream.

'He's not dead,' he assured himself. 'I can still feel his soul wavelength, he's not dead. Oh God, if he dies here, Father's never going to forgive me! Hang on, Italy! Don't die!'

Upon reaching the entrance hall, he skidded to a halt.

What awaited him was, to his or anyone else's mind, a scene of utter devastation. Shards of glass littered the floor, mostly clumped around a large wet patch seeping slowly into the carpet. An ornate silver candlestick had been removed from its normal position and had rolled to the wall, and from here he could see that the top half bore a thick coating of drying blood. This most likely had something to do with the corpse which was lying in a large patch of blood near the right side of the room, the head looking more like a deflated football than anything resembling a skull. There was also an uneven spatter of blood on the walls, a majority of the floor and _dear god_, even the ceiling!

Italy, meanwhile, was huddled in a corner, sobbing and whimpering in fear and horror. It didn't take Kid long to figure out what had happened: Italy had tried to get himself a drink, but was attacked by one of the invaders and struck back with the candlestick. And, quite obviously, he had gotten carried away.

As he approached, Italy looked up and the young reaper saw that he too was splattered with blood – it was on his body, arms, even his face. His eyes were wide and fearful, but at the same time wary of another attack.

"Kid…" he muttered in a wavering voice, "Help me, I-I just- I didn't… I didn't know what else to do, I… h-he was going to… is-is he dead?"

What?

Was he _serious?_

That man, whoever he was, had been beaten about the head so much that he barely even looked human anymore and this coward, this idiot, this snivelling little _imbecile_ was asking whether or not he was DEAD?!

The mental dam broke. Kid's built up frustration, aided by the intense pain in his arm, began to spill out.

"Yes," he said forcefully, as though his words were the strikes of a war hammer. "Yes, Italy. He is dead. D. E. A. D. Dead. You have battered him so much that even his soul has dissipated. He has passed on. This man is no more. He has ceased to be! He has expired and gone to meet his maker! He is a late. Person! He's a stiff! Bereft of life! He rests in peace! If he weren't still lying here soaking into the carpet he'd be pushing up daisies! _He's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible!_"

"THIS!"

"IS AN _EX!_"

"_PERSON!_"

Italy flinched violently with every spoken word, trying to get as far away from the now-panting reaper as much as possible. But because he was already in a corner, there was nowhere else he could go. He was trapped.

He looked from Kid's furious face to the corpse on the floor, then to the blood-covered candlestick, back to Kid and repeated the cycle over and over again.

"N-No," he stammered, "bu-but I've never killed anyone before, I- I haven't- no. No, please no! Help me, Kid, help me! Please, what do I do? What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?! Help me! _Help me! HELP ME!_"

He buried his face in his blood-stained hands and wept helplessly, his tears carving tracks in the scarlet splatters on his face. Kid couldn't remember the last time he had seen such a violent emotion breakdown, but he was now regretting his harsh verbal attack.

The door flew inward and almost hit him in the face.

"Kid!" yelled Spirit as he entered. "Thank god you're alright; Liz called and said you were under attack, but she didn't-"

He stopped in his tracks when he saw the state of the room: Kid with blood seeping through his sleeve and dripping in weighty globules off his fingers, a blood-drenched young man huddled in a corner bawling his eyes out, a wrecked corpse in the middle of the room and blood sprayed all over the place.

"What the HELL happened here?" the red-headed man demanded.

The young reaper was lost for words. Perhaps for the first time in his whole life, Death the Kid didn't know what to do.

* * *

**I... I got nothing.**

**What can I say? What can I possibly say without making myself look like a horrible person?**

**...**

**Rebyū wa kangei sa rete iru**


	10. I Will Try To Fix You

Spirit ran a hand through his damp hair.

"I shouldn't be here," he sighed in exasperation. "My Maka must be terrified of the storm; I should be at home comforting her."

"Your daughter," said Kid in response, "didn't she turn fourteen recently?"

The Death Scythe shot him a glare of reproach.

"And hasn't she become a scythe meister with the intention of creating a scythe even better than you are?" asked the teenage reaper. "Father has told me that she appears to be naturally talented in combat. It seems to me that a person like that isn't very likely to be frightened of something like a storm."

"It's the thought that counts!" Spirit insisted angrily. "She'll always be my little Maka!"

Kid tried to say something else, but winced and gripped his now-bandaged arm.

"You sure you're alright?" asked the older weapon. "You don't look so good."

"Not quite," said Kid. "Could you…?"

Spirit rolled his eyes. A small scythe blade sprouted out of the back of his forearm, and Kid used it to cut the other sleeve off his pyjama shirt. He may have looked a little untidy, but at least his symmetry was restored (aside from the bandage around his arm, of course).

"Thank you," he said gratefully.

"No problem," said Spirit. "You gonna be okay? You look like you lost quite a lot of blood."

"It's nothing, really," Kid insisted. "I'll be fine. I don't think I'll be getting any more sleep tonight, though."

"I'm not surprised," said Spirit. "If something like that happened to me, I'd be afraid to even close my eyes again, and god forbid, if somebody tried to hurt my Maka…"

'Please try to think about something other than your daughter,' Kid thought.

"Well, if you're sure," Spirit said, "have a good night. And be thankful I stopped that nutjob from sewing his initials into your arm."

Kid looked over at the doctor who had seen to his wounds – he was standing near the front door, cleaning his glasses on his lab coat and smoking a cigarette – who nodded in acknowledgment and turned to leave, disappearing into the downpour outside. Spirit moved to follow in his wake, but paused and stood back for the cleaning crew which had been mopping up the mess in the entrance hall.

He paused again once he was outside.

"Hey Kid!" he yelled, pointing to one side. "You might wanna check that guy out! He doesn't look too good either!"

Then, with a final wave, he too faded into the rainfall.

'Who was he talking about?' thought Kid as he approached the door to hazard a look. 'Liz and Patty are still inside, so… crap. What's that little idiot doing to himself now?'

It wasn't quite as he had feared. In fact, it wasn't like anything he had been expecting at all.

Italy was standing out in the rain, face turned towards the black clouds, allowing the freezing water to saturate his skin and hair and soak his clothes through and through. He wasn't moving very much: Kid had to squint and look very closely just to make sure that he was still breathing. And his expression, if you could even call it that, was completely blank. He wasn't worried, frightened or even close to angry which was what Kid had expected over everything else. For the first time since they'd met, there wasn't a single bit of emotion on his face.

"Italy!" Kid shouted. "Italy, what are you doing?"

There was no reply. As far as the young reaper could tell, Italy hadn't even heard him.

"What are you doing out in the rain?" Kid asked. "Don't you know you'll make yourself ill if you stay out there too long?"

Still nothing.

Kid felt two familiar presences beside him.

"What the hell is he doing?" asked Liz.

"Standing."

"I can see that, Patty!"

"Why is he just standing out in the rain?"

"He must be in shock," Kid deduced. "He told me he's never killed anyone before, so I'm not surprised if what just happened was rather traumatic for him. It doesn't explain why he's out there."

He took an umbrella from a stand next to the door and stepped out into the storm. The rain thudded so heavily onto the thin fabric that he was worried it might fracture and drench him, but it managed to hold out at least until he got it over the head of the statuesque nation.

"Italy, what are you doing?" he asked. "Look at you, you're drenched!"

Italy still refrained from speaking. He turned to look at Kid, who noticed that his face was now free from blood spatter, and his expression remained completely blank.

Perhaps this was because he didn't know what to think or feel. He didn't know whether to be frightened in case he was attacked again or frightened of himself because of what he had done. Maybe he was waiting to be told what to think or do or feel because he didn't know how to decide for himself, and considering the events of the past couple of hours, he was probably afraid that deciding for himself would lead to somebody else getting hurt or killed.

He raised a hand to his head and rubbed it, then fell rather heavily onto Kid's shoulder (the left, thank goodness). As Kid helped him get back into the house, he realised something else:

"Italy, have we changed your bandages lately?"

Italy managed to shake his head.

"Well, why didn't you mention it sooner?" Kid demanded, although he wasn't expecting an answer. Upon entering the house, he pushed the door closed with his foot and shot his partners a desperate look. It seemed there had been a lot of desperation in their household recently.

"Kid?" said Liz. "Italy, what's- is something wrong?"

"I don't know," said Kid, "but it's very likely. Liz, I need you to go to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. There should be some bandages in there as well as a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Patty, I need you to grab some towels. Also I'd appreciate it if one of you could get me a pair of scissors. Bring them to the main dining room, understand?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Got it!"

While the girls ran away in search of the requested supplies, Kid pulled the staggering Italy through the house to the dining room, occasionally muttering encouragements along the lines of 'not far to go now' and 'almost there' which were mostly lies, but Kid wanted to get the man off his shoulder so that he could regain some symmetry. When they eventually did reach the room they were headed for, Italy fell so heavily into the nearest chair that Kid feared it would break.

He looked down and saw that he would probably spend the rest of the night clearing up the trailing puddle which the nation had left through his house.

"Italy," he said, "I need you to take off your hoodie."

The nation nodded and obediently pulled off the soaking hooded sweater, leaving it in a big soggy heap on the table. Good. He obviously didn't want to cause any trouble.

"You should look away," Kid instructed. "Chances are this isn't going to be pretty."

While he moved up the sleeve to expose the top of the bandage, Italy turned and started to pay very close attention to the opposite wall. He seemed almost adamant at communicating with Kid as little as possible.

"I'm sorry I shouted at you," he said. "I know now, I-I should have known better than to make you feel any worse than you already were, especially after something like that. And I can tell from those bruises on your neck that he tried to strangle you, is that correct?"

It was strange how he spoke as if he was expecting a reply. There wasn't one.

"You should know that if that was the case, you were perfectly justified in defending yourself. Those men were ruthless. If you hadn't killed the one that attacked you, he would definitely have killed you. Ideally, you should not have made such a mess, but considering how you must have been panicking…"

He trailed off, realising that he was no help, just as his partners returned.

"We got the stuff you asked for, Kid!" said Patty. "That alcohol stuff stinks: I hope you're not gonna drink it."

"It's safe to say that due to recent events I am NEVER going to drink again," Kid replied, putting extra emphasis on the 'never' aspect.

"You better not," Liz said threateningly. "It's bad enough that you're an OCD nutcase, we don't need you being a drunk as well."

Kid scowled at the 'OCD nutcase' but quickly decided that there were more important matters at hand. He took the scissors, carefully inserted them between the bandage and Italy's skin and started to cut the gauze away from the man's arm, lain palm down on the table. He winced a little, but didn't cry or yelp in pain. Kid found himself wishing he would: maybe because he wanted another excuse to apologise.

He took a deep breath and removed the bandages from Italy's lower arm.

Liz and Patty's eyes widened in shock, and Kid had to keep himself from turning away, at the sight of three massive gashes which each ran at least halfway around Italy's arm. They were obviously not closed, and appeared a little yellow or green towards the edges. That Italy had even remained conscious without passing out from pain was an absolute miracle.

"Oh god," Liz swore.

"So nasty," Patty whispered.

"It's just as I feared," said Kid. "The wounds are infected. It's not too serious, but we should most likely change the dressings daily from now on. I can't believe we didn't do this earlier. I'm sorry, Italy."

There was no reply, and Italy refused to move or say a word as Kid removed the bandages on his upper arm, exposing three more almost identical gashes. It was clear that if Italy were to raise his arm, as if he were trying to protect himself, they would form three neat if fractured lines running across the limb where the kishin had struck him. They weren't bleeding, but they were weeping somewhat disgustingly, and Kid hoped that he could get this done quickly before it made too much of a mess on his table.

"That's what the kishin did to him?" asked Patty. "Poor baby."

She hugged Italy around the waist in an attempt to comfort him, but he still didn't respond. Not even when Kid started to clean his wounds: it surely must have been painful to feel the disinfectant trickling down into his bare flesh. It was as though he wasn't even on this planet anymore, like a whole alternative universe had been created with Italy as its soul inhabitant.

Minutes passed in utter, crushing silence. Kid tried to be as gentle as he could in cleaning Italy's nightmarish wounds, but it presented difficulty because he was also trying to do it as quickly as he could so that he could cover up the mess. Italy, with Patty still wrapped around his waist, didn't move at all beyond occasionally clenching and unclenching his fists, his current method by which he was dealing with the stinging pain of the alcoholic disinfectant. Liz could only sit and watch the unnerving spectacle.

"Liz, Patty, I have to know," said Kid while he was busy. "Those men, the ones who invaded the house… did they…"

"No," said Liz. "They pointed guns in our faces and told us we'd die if we tried to escape, but it didn't go any further than that. If it had, Italy wouldn't have been the only one who-"

Considering that Italy was literally _right there_, she stopped talking rather abruptly.

He began to relax as Kid started to wind the fresh bandage around his arm, and as soon as the amateur medical care was finished he stood up and walked away, still in his almost catatonic state. The weapons and meister faintly heard his door open and close, and all of them guessed correctly that they weren't going to see him for the rest of this horrible night.

"Shit," Kid swore, burying his face in his hand, "what the hell have I done?"

"What have you done?" asked Liz in faux-confusion.

She whacked her meister hard upside the head that he hit the surface of the table hard enough to put a dent in the woodwork.

"You freaked him out, that's what you did!" she yelled, jumping to her feet. "Yeah, we both heard you screaming at him, so don't look as us like you don't know what we're talking about!"

"You knew he was freaked out, didn't you?" Patty demanded furiously. "You could see that he was completely horrified, but that didn't stop you, did it? You just HAD to go a little bit further and make sure he was broken! Absolutely, positively BROKEN!"

"Okay, I understand!" Kid shouted back. "I messed up! I get that now! It's just- he's been getting on my nerves for the past couple of days, and then when he asked if that man who attacked him was dead, when the answer should have been a plain as day, I just- I never thought that anybody could say anything so mind-numbingly stupid! You-you understand, don't you?"

His eyes were pleading for empathy and compassion, but it was obvious that neither of the girls were going to give him any.

He was going to have to deal with this on his own.

* * *

_Bam bam bam bam._

"Italy?" said Kid. "I need to change your bandages, so I'm coming in, alright?"

Still no answer. It had been like that for quite a while now. Ever since that dreadful night, everyone had been trying to move on, but Italy…

Kid placed the bowl he had been holding on the floor and opened the door.

Just as he had been for the past few days, Italy was curled up in his bed, naked save for the quilt wrapped around his body. He was tightly hugging his pillow, face buried deep into the cushioned surface, not even moving except for the gentle rise and fall of his bare chest as he breathed.

Kid picked up the steaming bowl.

"Italy, it's been over a week," he said, noting that if he had his way the number of days would be one week exactly, "and you haven't left your room for anything other than using the bathroom. You have to eat something even if you don't want to. Surely you must be hungry?"

If Italy had noticed his presence, he was very good at hiding it.

"I made you some pasta," said Kid. "I haven't had much practise so it probably wouldn't be the best you've ever tasted, but you'll be glad to know I arranged it symmetrically before it got cold. It's still hot if you want it."

The man's ears had twitched upon the mention of pasta, but that was it.

Carrying the bowl in one hand and a roll of fresh bandages in the other, Kid entered the room and closed the door with his foot. He placed the bowl on the bedside table and sat down on the bed.

"Come on," he ushered.

Italy sat upright; keeping his eyes closed like they usually were, he held out his left arm for redressing. This had become the ritual over the past eight days. Kid would go in, change the man's bandages and then leave again. He still had yet to say a single word to anybody or reply to questions beyond a nod or shake of his head, and even though he often came out to use the bathroom, the bandage changing was the only person-to-person interaction he had.

Kid slowly unwound the bandages, revealing the wounds beneath.

Thanks to his efforts with the disinfectant, they were now free of all greenness and it looked as though the skin was finally starting to close. It still looked very painful and uncomfortable, but the Italian lad had ceased all wincing when the new bandages were put on and the old were removed. Perhaps he had grown used to the pain.

Silence once again weighed heavily in the air as Kid laid the used bandages by his side and bound the fresh gauze around the outstretched limb.

"There," he said when he was done. "You'd better eat your pasta before..."

He stopped talking because something else had caught his attention.

As it turned out, Italy hadn't been burying his face into the pillow: instead there was a thin book standing in the way. Many of the pages, viewed from the side, were crinkled under the pressure of pencil lead.

"Excuse me," said Kid, reaching for it, "may I…?"

Italy nodded, still remaining silent.

Kid didn't know what he had been expecting when he picked up that book. Maybe a few childish sketches and scribbles, perhaps of farm animals which resembled bubbles or a cat and a dog or two – exactly what you'd expect from a person of Italy's mindset and personality – but what awaited him were some of the most amazing and lovingly drawn portraits he had ever seen in his life.

'He did all this with _pencils?_' he found himself thinking. 'How many more surprises does this man have up his sleeves?'

"Italy," he said as he flicked through the pages, "these are amazing. Admittedly some of them are rather lacking in the symmetry department, but why didn't you tell me you were such a good artist?"

Italy shifted from where he had been, hugging his pillow again, and gave Kid a rather incriminating glare.

"Would you have believed me?" he asked.

Well… no. Kid had expected that a childish person would produce childish artwork. More to the point, Italy had just spoken for the first time in over a week. This was definitely good progress.

The first portrait, unsurprisingly, was of Germany. Every last slicked back hair had been picked out in remarkable detail, every tiny eyelash, even the glints in his sky coloured eyes had been marked and elaborated upon. Even though the man was only a drawing, he looked as though his expression could change from that faint smile at any moment. Like it could graduate into a full-blown grin of joy or devolve into a disapproving frown.

The next was a rather emotionless-looking man who looked only a little younger than Italy, but considering that it was quite plainly another nation, there was a chance that he was actually considerably older. His hair was black, shining blue in the non-existent light, and cut short. His eyes were oddly blank and of such a deep shade of brown that they were almost black.

The inscription at the bottom, in loving cursive, was 'Japan'.

All of the portraits were along the same lines, and quite a few of them were not what Kid had been expecting. America, rather than the greasy Southern-looking cowboy he had thought it would be, was instead an enthusiastic looking youth with dusty-coloured hair, a crescent-shaped cowlick sticking up on the right side of his face, and winking blue eyes behind thinly framed glasses. England could have been a stuffy looking bigwig with a monocle and top hat, but was actually a young man with messy straw-coloured hair, forest green eyes and alarmingly thick eyebrows which bent inwards as he smiled cockily out of the page.

He didn't know what he had been expecting of France, but what he got was a winking man with deep blue eyes, long wavy blonde hair and a rough coating of stubble on his chin (and imprints at the top of the page as though someone had written PERVERT ALERT and then rubbed it out). Russia gave him the creeps, which was surprising for such an innocent looking young man: pale hair, violet eyes and a scarf, along with imprints on his hair as though _someone_ had drawn little devils horns and erased them. China looked surprisingly boyish for someone who must have been in his mid-thousands, brown eyes still bright with near-adolescence, hair tied into a loose ponytail.

Kid didn't recognise the last one. He bore a striking resemblance to Italy, but there were several obvious differences: his eyes were paler and closer to hazel, his hair and skin tone were darker and the curl which plagued the young reaper's mind was protruding from his forehead and sprouted to the right. He glowered angrily out of the paper as though he wanted to punch something.

'Amazing,' Kid thought. 'I'm worried about being punched by a picture which doesn't even have hands.'

"I've never heard of a country called Romano," he pointed out.

"There isn't one," Italy replied. "He's my big brother, Italy Romano. The south. I'm the north, Italy Veneziano."

'Good God,' Kid thought morbidly, 'there's TWO?!'

He closed the book and placed it on the floor.

"Italy," he said quietly, "if you're trying to use your silence to punish me for how I shouted at you, then I want you to know I don't blame you. I-I think you'll agree that everything was out of line that night. I should have allowed my frustration to show a little sooner, rather than just letting it built up until it spewed out like that. The fact is, you needed a friend and you needed one badly, and hell knows I wasn't the right one."

Tears were glistening in Italy's eyes.

"If you wish to hit me, you're welcome to it," said Kid. "Just do it neatly."

He closed his eyes and waited.

Any second now. Any second he was going to feel a fist pound into his face, then another in his stomach, and it would continue like that until his strength was wasted and he was struggling to breathe, and he wouldn't resist because it was exactly what he deserved…

…so naturally he was rather surprised when Italy threw his arms around him and started sobbing into his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry!" he wept. "I'm s-so sorry about everything! If-if I really make you that mad, then I can change, I-I swear it, but I-I don't… I-I'm just- I'm so scared of myself, Kid! I- I just- I never thought my fear could-could ever drive me to kill somebody! A man is dead because of me! And I hate it when people have to die, especially when-when I know there's something th-that I could've… could've done… I hate it… _so much…_"

"In a sense, I am Death," Kid pointed out. "Does that mean you hate me too?"

"N-No!" cried Italy in shock. "No, I-I wouldn't- I couldn't- you're my friend, I- I couldn't hate you, why did- you've been so-so nice to me and I-"

"Death is just another part of life," said Kid, placing a comforting hand on the wretched man's back (even though it was probably cold as hell). "If there was no such thing as death, our planet would be overcrowded and that would just make one big mess. It's better to just accept it as inevitability rather than try to fight it. If there is an opportunity for a soul to be saved – a soul which is pure and has remained on the path of a human – then yes, you should try to do everything in your power to prevent its demise. But if a soul has strayed from the path of a human and started down the path of a demon, as that man who attacked you had, then taking their life is a mercy. It's why Father founded the DWMA."

Italy paused in his crying, waiting for Kid to continue.

"'A sound soul'," the boy recited, "'dwells within a sound mind and a sound body'. That's the way it always has been, that's the way it always is and that's the way it always shall be. You may not like it, but that's how it works."

He stood up, picked up the old bandages and headed towards the door.

"You can come out any time you like," he said. "Liz and Patty are worried about you, you know. They'll be glad to see you're alright."

And the last thing he saw as the door was closing was Italy reaching for the still steaming bowl.

* * *

"-you can Phone a Friend or Ask the Audience-"

"-Wheel! Of! Fortu-"

"-oh Jeff, I love you too, but-"

"-larus, is now offering 200 million rubles in exchange for any information which could lead to the whereabouts of her missing elder brother-"

"-I don't care! I'd rather sink than call Brad for help-"

"Anything interesting on?" asked Liz, who was busy coating her nails in crimson varnish.

"Sure," said Patty, "if you're interested in crap."

She turned the TV off as Kid entered the room.

"How's he doing?" asked the elder of the two sisters.

"He's started talking again," said Kid. "I think that could be taken as a good sign. Also he appeared rather interested in the pasta that I- hang on, what's so funny?"

Both of the girls had started sniggering.

"I'm sorry!" Liz giggled. "It's just that- just that the thought of someone like _you_ making pasta-"

At the second mention of the magic word, she and Patty fell about laughing. Even Kid let out a small chuckle: he had to admit that the concept of a person of his unique lineage and… questionable personality cooking something like pasta was somewhat ridiculous.

They were still laughing as Italy emerged, dressed in relatively plain clothes and faintly smiling in a rather nervous fashion.

"Italy!" cried Patty, and she leapt up and tackl- hugged him again. "Italy! Italy! You're okay! I'm so glad you're okay! Are you okay?"

"Ve~ I think so," said Italy, and Kid was relieved to hear the return of his verbal tic. "_Grazie_ for the pasta, Kid."

And there it was, and Liz and Patty burst once more into reels of laughter. Italy gave Kid a questioning look, and the young reaper just shrugged in a surprisingly nonchalant fashion.

"Now girls," he said, "are you ready to go?"

"Mm-hm."

"Yeah!"

"Wait," said Italy, confused. "What's going on?"

"I think I forgot to tell you," said Kid. "I received a briefing this morning. The girls and I have a mission – we have to investigate reports of supernatural disturbances in central Europe. Father fears it might prove too dangerous for a student of the academy, so-"

"So you're leaving?" asked Italy, fear returning to his voice. "You're going to leave me here all by myself?"

How could Kid explain this without making it sound like he was abandoning Italy? The poor guy was just starting to recover. His mission had to come first – he couldn't just stand back while innocent people's lives were probably in danger – but at the same time, he just looked so wretched. Kid had never seen such an emotionally damaged person, let alone one who was only capable of defending himself in the most crucial of moments, and only when it was certain that no-one was coming to his aid.

And right now he was kneeling on the floor, clutching at the bottom of Kid's suit jacket and staring up at him with those innocent eyes…

"I'm sorry," he said. "I have to. It won't take long if everything goes according to plan. You'll be okay if you stay here alone, won't you? You were last time."

"But it's different this time!" Italy objected. "This time you're going all the way to the other side of the world and what if you take ages or don't come back or get hurt or what if I get attacked again and-"

"You'll be fine," Kid interrupted. "You probably don't realise it, Italy, but you are a _lot_ stronger than you look. You managed to completely annihilate that man who was trying to kill you, and you managed to floor me with a single punch, so I think you'll-"

"Wait, when did THAT happen?" said Liz.

"I'll tell you on the way, alright?" said Kid, more than a little embarrassed. He knelt down so that he could be on the same level as Italy.

"I know you don't like this," he said, "and truth be told, I don't either, because I was planning on spending the afternoon making sure all of my picture frames are parallel to the floor. But we won't take that long, and I'll make sure we come back. Okay?"

Italy bowed his head.

"Okay," he sighed.

"Good," said Kid as he stood up. "Come along then, girls. The sooner we leave the sooner we get back."

He turned to leave.

"Ve~ Kid?" said Italy when they had almost reached the front door.

"Yes, what is it now?"

"Can I… that is, I mean… well… um, you see… I was just wondering if…"

"I don't have all day, you know."

"Well, um… I was just wondering, after you left and you'd made pasta for me, and it was really nice, by the way-"

"Your point?"

Italy shrank back a little at Kid's tone.

"Would it be okay… if I called you… big brother?"

…

Wow.

Okay.

Didn't see that one coming.

Three pairs of eyes trained their attention on the teenage reaper, all patiently waiting for an answer, while Kid thought over what to do or say.

Big… big brother?

Well… mentally, Italy was quite clearly a lot younger than Kid, but Kid was physically younger than Italy, and he had been more or less dependent on him for the past couple of weeks, but if Italy looked up to him as a _big brother…_

He took a deep breath, and for a moment Italy was worried he was about to start yelling at him again.

No, wait, was he smiling?

"Yes," he said. "Yes you may."

"OH MY GOD NO WAAAY!" Italy screamed, jumping up and down on the spot. "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU COMEHERESOICANGIVEYOUAHUG COMEHERESOICANGIVEYOUAHUG _HUG_!"

He threw his arms around Kid and clutched him so tightly that the poor boy could barely breathe.

"There's something you don't see every day," Liz commented as Patty rolled around on the floor laughing helplessly.

* * *

Big brother.

Big brother!

_Big brother!_

Kid had said yes! He'd said yes to being Italy's big brother, even though Italy was kinda older than him! He finally had a big brother who wouldn't try to touch him in bad places and make him feel uncomfortable or try to make him their underling or strangle him and beat him up for trying to be friendly with Germany-

Italy froze in his celebration.

Where had he seen it again…?

Oh yes. On the first floor, right side of the house, there was a telephone. It looked like it hadn't been used much – possibly because it only required one hand to use and if Kid used it his symmetry would be off.

But what if there was no answer?

Then he would just leave a message, of course. Leave a message and let him know that he was alright.

Italy picked up the receiver, dialled the number and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Then the sounds of ringing ended, to be replaced by:

"_Guten morgen-_"

"GERMANY!" Italy cried ecstatically.

"_-you have reached the residence of Ludwig Beilschmidt. Leave a message after the tone and ONLY AFTER THE TONE HAS FINISHED!_"

*beep*

Germany… wasn't there?

"Germany, are you there?" asked Italy. "It's me! It's Italy! I know you're probably worried about me since it's been nearly two weeks and all, but I just want you to know that I'm okay! And I got a new big brother! Well, he's not really my big brother because he's a Grim Reaper and it's a _really_ long story about that…"

He trailed off.

Surely, if Germany was there, he would have answered by now, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he?

"Germany?" Italy said quietly. "Germany, are you there?"

Still nothing.

Hands trembling, Italy placed the receiver down.

He wasn't there. Germany wasn't there.

Still, that didn't mean everyone else was gone, did it?

He picked the receiver back up and dialled another number, and waited for the ringing to finish.

"_This is the residence of Lovino Vargas, who can't be fucked picking up right now. Leave a goddamn message, what do you think I want you to do, you stupid bastard?_"

*beep*

"Romano?" Italy said. "Romano, it's me! It's your _fratello_! Can you hear me? I was thinking you might be worried about me, so I…"

"Romano?"

Nothing.

So he ended the call and decided to try someone else.

And after that, someone else.

* * *

"Your Ladyship!"

She sat up, examining her new body. Somewhere, somebody would be missing their sister or daughter, but she didn't care. It contained her soul. It was her body now.

The twenty-odd men bowed before her, not daring to look into her eyes.

"Your Ladyship," one of them said, "we pray that you appreciate your new body. How do you feel?"

She flexed her fingers.

"_Bored._"

* * *

**Cheesy chapter name is cheesy, but it seemed appropriate, okay?**

**To tell the truth, I don't see Italy and Kid having a relationship which isn't at least partly fraternal. If they were brothers in an alternate universe or something, there's no doubt in my mind that Kid would be the elder one if only because of Italy's mental state and/or lack of maturity. I would be lying if I said it had nothing to do with the fact that they are both dubbed by Todd Haberkorn (who is _awesome_ BTW).**

**Also, I included a few little easter eggs in the scene where Patty is channel surfing. See if you can work them out. I think I should also mention that the next chapter will feel very familiar to those of you who have an appreciation for the horror genre...**

**Huānyíng pínglùn.**


	11. Watch Your Back

The forest was unnaturally quiet and the trees unnervingly still as the young reaper descended through the trees and landed in the undergrowth before sucking his skateboard up into his arm. It still stung a little, but at least he wasn't bleeding every time he did that anymore. The injury had made for a couple of flights which were quite, quite unpleasant.

Kid pulled the twin pistols out of his trousers and they flashed back into their human forms, stretching and flexing their limbs.

"Okay," Liz groaned as she rolled her shoulders, "so where are we this time?"

"Wait, wait, I know this place!" cried Patty. "Kid, is this the Black Forest again?"

"Very astute observation, Patty," said Kid as he looked around. "Yes, we're back in the Black Forest, but our mission should prove a little different this time."

"Yeah," said Liz, "how many completely crazy yet somehow insanely good looking guys who say they're countries incarnate do you think we're going to encounter this time?"

"Two!"

"I was being sarcastic, Patty."

"Girls," said Kid, "I think you should take weapon form and remain that way for the remainder of the mission."

The sisters paused in their stretching.

"Why's that, Kid?" asked Liz. "You do know how stiff we get, right?"

"It's better to feel stiff than to _be_ a stiff."

At this alarming statement, the sisters' eyes widened and they stared, shocked, at their meister.

"You probably haven't noticed because you don't have soul perception," Kid explained, "but there's a very ominous feeling in this place. In this area, I can feel at least ten… no, about twenty human souls, but all of them are distorted to the very limits of humanity. It's almost as though something has mutated them, and every single one seems to be crying out in pain and horror. I propose that we hunt them down, one by one, and inhume them."

Liz and Patty stared at him in apprehension.

"On the plus side," Kid said, brightening up a little, "there's an even number of souls this time so you can split them between you without worrying about leftovers."

"Oh joy," Liz said flatly, "I can't wait."

Patty burst out laughing at her tone.

"Girls!"

"Alright, alright, keep your stripes on."

"Okeydokey Kid!"

In another flash of light, the girls transformed back into their weapon forms and leapt into Kid's waiting hands. Gripping them tightly, the young reaper started to weave his way through the trees. He had to be more careful this time: it had rained recently and the undergrowth was wet and slippery and glistened with miniscule droplets of water in the faint sunlight.

It was peaceful. Too peaceful. If all was well, there would have been birds twittering overhead, small animals running across the forest floor and leaping over the roots and grasses. But there was nothing. No matter how much he expanded his soul perception, all he could feel were the twisted human souls scattered around the forest. Not just that, but there was something inherently… _familiar_ about them. Like he'd felt them before, but only very briefly.

'What's going on here?' he thought. 'I don't like this.'

"Hey Kid?"

"Yes, Liz, what is it?"

Liz cringed internally at the anger in his voice.

"I just wanted to say," she said, "what you did for Italy back there: that was really sweet of you. I know none of us saw it coming – I never would've thought he'd actually see you as a friend after how you've treated him, let alone a big brother – and I can't actually believe you said yes."

"I should have told you," said Kid, "his kind seem to have an ability to let others see their memories, and from what I can tell, very few people have been kind to him in the past."

"WHAT?!" cried Patty. "But who the hell could be mean to a cute little sweetheart like him? And _why?_"

"I don't know," Kid replied. "Perhaps the fact that he's a genuinely good person is in itself the reason he is a victim. He tries so hard to make friends with everybody that sometimes he ends up making friends with nobody. Hence the fact that when we first met and he felt that I was stronger than him, he immediately produced a white flag from somewhere and started to wave it while pleading for his life. He seems to think that by surrendering, he automatically has to be friends with whoever he surrenders to."

'And that's not how it works,' he noted in his mind. 'In the past when a country surrendered (before I knew that they were people as well) they almost always ended up as a slave of sorts to whoever they surrendered to. They definitely were NOT friends, but I suppose if you're as naïve as Italy is, it may seem like the only way. And if it meant they would stop hurting him…'

He didn't really want to finish that thought. It was far too unpleasant. He would never be able to live with himself if he allowed his head to be filled with mental images of Italy begging for his life with tears running endlessly down his face while facing down the barrel of a gun and ineffectually waving a little white flag.

And now, on top of that, Italy now considered himself to be equivalent to Kid's little brother…

This would certainly be a tale to tell his father. How in the world would he react to finding out he (probably) now had two sons instead of just the one? Two Grim Reapers – one frighteningly tall and bouncy and ridiculous, the other rather diminutive, obsessive-compulsive and ultra-serious – and a personified country with a borderline infatuation with pasta and being unintentionally and infuriatingly cute. If that wasn't a dysfunctional family, then what was?

What made this weirder was the fact that they hadn't actually known each other for that long. It had only been… what? Eleven days? Twelve? Not quite two weeks, at least, but it seemed that no matter what they did, they were friendly to each other. Somehow. God knows Italy was hopelessly dependent on others for support and protection, and what made it worse was that it seemed that unless he felt personally hurt on an emotional level, he never actually got angry.

And it was only when he was angry that he displayed a degree of physical power. Anger made him strong. Not like the Hulk, obviously, but in a way-

Kid froze.

"Girls," he said quietly, "do either of you get the feeling we're being watched?"

There was a moment of silence from his partners.

"Aw!" Patty whined. "I didn't have that feeling earlier, but I do now and I don't know why and it's freaking me out!"

"Kid, are you sure you know what you're doing?" asked Liz. "'Coz if we get jumped by a monster, I'm holding you personally responsible and I seriously hope you understand that."

"I understand," said Kid, "although I can't say I like it. Couldn't you-"

He stopped in mid-sentence.

"Couldn't I what?" asked Liz. "C'mon Kid, if you want to tell me not to do something, at least tell me what the hell it is!"

"There's a piece of paper," said Kid. "It's been blown up into that tree. I think there's writing on it, if you'd just give me a moment…"

He tucked the twin pistols into his trousers and pulled the small sheet out of where it had been, pushed into a knothole by gusts of wind which had blown through the forest. It was a little scrunched up and wet, but the text was still readable:

_Beobachten Sie Ihren Rücken_

Kid spent quite a while just standing there, staring at the foreign words and trying to discern the dialect.

"What is it?" asked Liz. "Is there writing? Kid, what does it say?"

"I don't know," Kid confessed. "I think it's in German, but I can't be sure. I might have to ask someone about this once I'm finished here."

As he continued onwards, a strange yet plausible concept occurred to him:

What if the note was written by Germany?

It certainly wasn't impossible. After all, wasn't the Black Forest where Kid had encountered the man? But in that moment, he had been severely injured and his eyes had been burning with fear, and he had been lying immobile in the middle of a dirt road. DWMA paramedics should have been able to find him, of course, and tend to his wounds, but-but what if they hadn't got there in time? What if somebody else had found him first?

What if – and this may have been stretching it a little – it was the same people who had invaded his home and forcibly removed a soul from his _konso_? As he pocketed the note and drew the pistols once more, Kid could feel his head swirling with possibilities and conspiracy theories, some of them more atrocious and audacious than others, but most of them culminated around one rather strong and disturbing theory:

Kid had been right in assuming that Germany was not, to put it bluntly, okay.

'I can't be a hundred per cent sure about this,' he thought, 'which means I can't go home and tell Italy that Germany is probably a prisoner and still horribly injured, especially when he himself will have scars on his arm for the rest of his life. And besides, what if I'm wrong? This is just too much to think about, especially when I'm in the middle of a mission.'

"Kid, are you okay?" asked Patty. "You've been kinda quiet."

"I'm fine, Patty," he replied. "I'm just thinking, that's all. And I'm not sure you'd like to know what I'm thinking because some of it is rather disturbing."

"Try us," Liz said daringly.

"_No_," Kid said firmly.

Something else, light coloured and fluttering, appeared in the corner of his vision. When he turned to look he saw another note, pierced on a thin branch which sat, little more than a small and jagged stump, near the foot on a nearby tree. He pulled it off and examined the writing.

'You have GOT to be kidding me,' he thought as he read:

_觀看您的後面_

"What does that one say?" Patty asked curiously.

"I have no goddamn idea," Kid groaned. "I think- I'm not sure, but I think this might just be- is it Chinese? I can't really tell-"

"And here we were thinking you were a total brainbox," Liz deadpanned.

"There are only two languages which I can read fluently," explained Kid, "and those are English and Japanese. And a little bit of Italian now thanks to _him_, but that's irrelevant. And not just that."

He pocketed the second note and grabbed the guns.

"We're definitely being watched," he almost whispered. "The souls I sensed earlier are drawing closer."

"What do they want?" asked Liz quietly.

"How should I know?" said Kid. "I'm betting there's some more notes scattered around here, so we should try to find them. I just hope at least one of them is in English, otherwise I'm going to be very annoyed."

His feelings of apprehension growing ever stronger, Kid continued to explore the forest. He wasn't entirely sure how long he had been there, but he wanted to get out before nightfall because this place gave him the creeps.

'And this is coming from a Grim Reaper,' he joked to himself internally.

Indeed, the thought that a Grim Reaper, of all people, would get 'creeped out' was an extraordinary one.

It wasn't too long before he discovered a third note lying sheltered in the roots of a nearby tree – this being the Black Forest, there were a LOT of nearby trees, of course – and he couldn't help but let out a groan of discontent at what was inscribed upon it in black ink, as though from a fountain pen:

_Regardez Votre Revers_

"I think this one is French," he sighed. "This is really beginning to get on my nerves: I'm walking through a forest finding little notes in odd languages all over the place and I swear I'm being watched while I could be at home triple-checking that the candles in the living room have burnt down to the same lengths as each other. Girls?"

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm?"

"Do either of you know what 'Regardez Votre Revers' means?"

There was silence from both of the pistols, and Kid was rolling his eyes despite himself.

"That's what I-" he began, but Liz interrupted.

"Actually," she said, "doesn't it sound kinda like 'regard your reverse'?"

"Hey yeah, it does!" said Patty. "Maybe that's what the others say, too!"

"So to put it in layman's terms," said Kid, "what this latest note reads is 'watch your back'. And Patty, if you're correct and that's what the others say-"

Something broke.

Kid whipped around, looking for the source of the noise, but couldn't find it anywhere.

A chill shot down his spine.

There was something standing right behind him. He could feel it without his soul perception, feel it looming over him, probably twice as tall as he was, and possibly twice as wide as well, but he couldn't tell very much about it without looking. He didn't want to look. He didn't want to know what it was. But at the same time, he _had_ to. It was a truly nefarious catch-22.

"Liz," he muttered, "Patty, is there any chance either of you can tell me just what is standing behind me?"

"Kid," said Liz, "in case you forgot, we don't even have eyes right now."

"But sis, this is creepy!" said Patty. "There's something there, can't you feel it?"

He had to do it. He had to look around and see what was there. The uncertainty was eating him from the inside out, he had to know. He whipped round in a flash and saw…

…nothing.

There was nothing there.

"Oh god," he sighed in relief. "Girls, I promise that when we get home, you can have a whole day off just to go shopping. I won't tell you where to go or what not to buy: just one day with which to do whatever you please."

"What, _seriously?!_" asked Patty. "Omigosh, thank you!"

"You better not be joking about this!" Liz said bitterly. "'Coz I swear, if you are, I'm displacing every picture frame in your house by a centimetre!"

"Don't you dare!" cried Kid indignantly while Patty giggled. "Don't you dare even think about it!"

There was something else not far away. Another piece of paper. He ran over to it and snatched it up from the ground where it lay.

"This one's in English!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Very neat handwriting, too."

_Watch Your Back_

"That probably settles it," he decided. "All of these notes read the same thing, but in varying languages from around the world."

Watch your back.

For what?

A twig snapped and his head flashed around, but again he saw nothing. In every direction he looked, there was nothing there but trees, trees and more goddamn trees. Kid made a mental note to NEVER come to the Black Forest again if he could help it.

He clutched the pistols more tightly.

"Don't let go of us, okay?" asked Liz. "I really don't want to end up lost in this place."

"You'll be fine," said Kid. "You're my partners, so I'm not about to abandon you."

There was a pause.

"R-Really?" asked Patty.

"Of course!" said Kid. "It's not just because you're my partners. What kind of person would I be if I just left you out here?"

Another pause.

Another note. It was caught between the leaves of a low-lying shrub.

"No."

In their shared mental world, Kid's partners looked up at him curiously.

"What is it, Kid?" asked Liz, and sarcastically added, "Is something wrong which has nothing to do with the horrifyingly creepy atmosphere?"

"Yes!" Kid replied loudly. "This one- it says the same as the last, but this can't be English! I refuse to acknowledge that this is even writing! It looks as though a group of spiders just decided that this piece of paper would be the perfect place to curl up and die! They're dead spiders! It's not writing! Nobody has handwriting this inconceivably dreadful!"

"Then just put it away and keep going!" Liz commanded. "I just wanna get out of this place as quickly as possible, so get your goddamn mission over with and do it fucking fast!"

Kid elected not to reply to this due to unsettling distractions. He kept seeing something moving out of the corner of his eye – something tall and dark – but every time he tried to look at it, it disappeared and appeared on the other side. It was driving him insane.

There was another piece of paper lying on the ground, partially covered up by twigs and leaves. He picked it up and read it with a sigh:

_Наблюдайте Ваше Обратное_

"That's Russian," he thought aloud. "So far I've got Chinese, German, two in English, one in French and another in Russian. Even assuming that they all say the same thing, what the hell does it all _mean?!_"

But despite his ranting, he had a feeling he already knew. Even a child would be able to tell that they were warnings. And ever since he had landed here, he'd had the feeling that somebody was watching him, following him, and there were those noises of greenery moving beneath somebody's weight.

Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back.

Even though his fear was telling him he shouldn't watch his back as a small part of his mind protested that he should get the fucking hell out of there, but was overridden by the section which informed him that if he didn't complete this mission he would have officially failed as a Grim Reaper and the son of Death and didn't deserve to go on such an important mission ever again.

Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back. Watch Your Back.

He didn't want to. Kid didn't want to watch his back. Who knows what whatever was following him looked like? It could have been- it could be _completely _asymmetrical! With an uneven number of arms and legs or a head which was on sideways or a missing ear! Or horns which were different lengths or tentacles splayed all over the place or… he didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to know what kind of horrors awaited him should he turn around.

"Kid, I think we should just get out of here!" Liz almost shouted. "I feel like one of the guys from Blair Witch!"

"No!" Kid shouted back. "We're going to complete this mission whether we like it or not! Believe me when I say that I want to get out of here just as much as you do, but at the same time we need to get to the bottom of this! There could be other notes around here in other languages for all we know!"

"WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT THAT?!" Liz screamed. "There's definitely something freaky going on here and I really think we should just GO! Kid, are you even listening to me?!"

"Please, Kid, we should go!" Patty pleaded, sounding like she was almost in tears. "I really don't like this and I want to go home!"

But Kid had found another note, lying just inside what looked like a rabbit hole:

_Guardare le spalle_

"That… it looks like Italian," he thought aloud, "or some dialect of Latin. Why? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"

He slipped it into his pocket with the rest.

Then he started to run.

He didn't know where he was running to and quite frankly he didn't care. The _to_ didn't matter. What mattered to him at the moment was the _from_. He could feel something behind him again and it was definitely something huge, so he started searching for a clearing. A place where he could take off without being encumbered by the canopy above. He only hoped his father would understand and somehow be able to make sense of-

His foot caught on a root and he tripped, sprawling onto the forest floor.

"Kid!" cried Liz. "Kid, are you okay?"

Kid groaned. His face was scratched and most likely bleeding, his hands were grazed where the surface of the pistols had rubbed against them and where they had hit the ground and his suit was a mess.

And just as he was picking himself up, he saw another note right in front of his face.

He snatched it away and read it:

_あなたの背部を見_

"That's Japanese," he thought aloud. "Roughly translated, it means 'watch your back'. I'm going to have to ask Father about this once I get…"

He trailed off.

One of the twisted, mutated, distorted souls he had felt before was right behind him, not five metres away.

With his whole body quaking in fear, he looked around.

Once upon a time it may have been a man – an ordinary man, completely normal and completely human – but somebody, some sick and perverted person, had seen fit to twist his body into that of a monster. It stood at least eight feet tall and was impossibly thin, easily towering over the young reaper, and wore some sort of suit which wouldn't look out of place at a funeral. It bore an arrangement of black tentacles sprouting from its back, which waved around in the air as though it were underwater.

But the worst part by far was its… its _face_. Or its lack thereof. Where there should have been eyes, a nose, a mouth etc. there was only skin. Blank skin of palest white.

"Wh… What is that thing?" asked Patty quietly.

"I don't know," said Kid, "but if you could see its soul, you'd… it used to be a-"

"MONSTER!" Liz screeched. "I KNEW IT I KNEW IT IT'S A MONSTER LETS JUST GET OUT OF HERE AND FORGET ABOUT THE MISSION AND JUST GET AS FAR AWAY FROM HERE AS WE CAN BECAUSE IT'S A MONSTER!"

Kid nodded in agreement and leapt to his feet, or tried to at least. He fell back onto the ground, clutching his leg.

"KID WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU WE HAVE TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" his elder partner screamed.

"Well, I'm sorry," Kid said bitterly, "but the fall sprained my ankle and I can't run!"

"What?" shouted Patty. "You gotta be kidding me! That thing's getting closer; you have to get out of here!"

"Dammit!" Kid swore. He pulled his guns and shot the slender giant over and over again, aiming at its abdomen in the hopes of exposing its soul.

It had no effect.

He tried shooting at its head. Again, nothing.

"Why isn't it having any effect?" he said to no-one in particular.

The creature raised one of its tentacles, which were all sharped to a needle-like point, and prepared to strike. Kid only just rolled out of the way in time, but felt it cut through the side of his suit.

"Shit!" he swore.

He had to fix it. He had to find a way to fix his jacket. Forget the fact that the creature was trying to kill him, his symmetry was off! He dropped the guns and started desperately trying to close the tear, grappling with his fingers and trying to ignore his complaining ankle-

…

It all happened so fast.

Nobody was entirely sure how it happened.

One minute Kid had been hopelessly attempting to fix his clothes, and then… then…

The creature had used his distraction as an opportunity to attack, and now…

There was a tentacle in his stomach.

It pierced right through his body and deep into the ground, and the shock chased every last bit of air from his lungs. He tried to speak. Tried to plead for his life. All that happened was a tiny trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth.

"Kid!" cried Liz in horror. "Kid, don't leave us!"

"Stay awake!" Patty shouted. "KID!"

But it didn't work. Kid felt his last ounce of strength slip away, and nothing could prevent his eyes from slowly sliding closed.

"_KIIID!_" the girls screamed together.

But it was no good.

The tentacle curled up through the ground until it resurfaced, at which point it was wound around Kid's limp, unmoving body and picked him up off the ground, drawing him in and wrapping other tentacles around the young reaper until he was bound to the creature's back.

"No you fucking well DON'T!"

Patty returned to her human form in a flash, grabbed her sister's weapon form and took aim-

"Patty, don't!" Liz insisted. "You might hit Kid!"

"What's the point of trying to miss?" asked the younger sister.

"He's a Grim Reaper, isn't he?" Liz pointed out. "It'll take a buttload more than a tentacle to the stomach to kill him!"

"So what?" asked Patty. "You think we should follow him and try to rescue him?"

"We can't!" said Liz. "There's no way I'm gonna go anywhere near that thing, and weren't you listening to Kid just now? There's gotta be like, twenty of them! Twenty giant monsters with sharp tentacles that could tear you to pieces! There is NO WAY I'm gonna let you go _anywhere near them!_"

Hands quivering, shoulders shaking and tears slowly trickling down her cheeks, Patty lowered the pistol to the ground. Liz retook human form and clutched her little sister tightly, refusing to let go as she sobbed into her shoulder.

"It's okay," she whispered, "it's gone."

"That was… so scary," Patty wept. "I thought- I really thought that thing was gonna kill us… Liz…"

"It's gone," Liz murmured, voice cracking as she too started to cry, "it's okay, it's gone…"

"Kid," Patty sobbed wretchedly. "What're we gonna do without Kid? Are we just- are we just gonna have to go back to New York? Are we gonna become the Brooklyn Demons again?"

They could, couldn't they?

It wasn't like Liz hadn't considered the possibility. They could steal some of Kid's money – he was the son of Death, he was bound to have plenty that he wouldn't miss – get on a bus back to New York, avoid the police and restart their adrenaline-filled life of crime and then…

And then…

What?

What would they do?

The only reason they had gone with Kid was the promise of a comfortable life, off the streets, with warm beds and clean clothes and food which was actually food, and they didn't have to steal or risk their lives to get anything. They weren't ever attacked by the mafia, the NYPD had no jurisdiction in Death City – hell, there wasn't _any_ police force in Death City, purely because it was a place built around a school which taught young people how to fight. They didn't need police. Liz had heard that the DWMA actually allowed fights between students, so long as there was a teacher to act as referee.

If they went back to living on the streets, they would never be able to survive.

"We should go back to Death City," she decided. "Try to get help."

"What?" cried Patty. "No, we can't tell Lord Death! He'll get super mad and then he'll Reaper Chop us!"

That was a good point. They didn't want to cause too much trouble. If they made to big a fuss, everyone would think they were causing too much noise and ignore them. That was how it had worked on the streets of Brooklyn. And what if they were taken seriously? If they found out that the Thompson sisters had allowed their meister to be wounded and captured by an enemy, what would they say?

What would Italy say?

Italy…

"Sis," said Liz, "I got an idea."

* * *

**So yeah, like I said, those familiar with the horror genre should recognise what went on here.**

**Just so you guys know, I had to upload this chapter from the local library. My family just moved house and the phone company is being a bitch and won't let us have Internet until next week. Yesterday was the first time I used the World Wide Web in about 4 days (I sometimes wonder how people ever got by _without_ the Internet).**

**The next chapter is where stuff begins to happen and a whole lot of shit gets fucked up. You don't want to miss it. Believe me.**

**Kritikés eínai ef̱prósdekta !**


	12. Le Memorie Ritorno

"_Guten morgen. You have reached the residence of Ludwig Beilschmidt. Leave a message after the tone and ONLY AFTER THE TONE HAS FINISHED!_"

*beep*

Put the receiver down. Pick it up. Dial the number. Wait.

"_This is the residence of Lovino Vargas, who can't be fucked picking up right now. Leave a goddamn message, what do you think I want you to do, you stupid bastard?_"

*beep*

Put the receiver down. Pick it up. Dial the number. Wait.

"Konnichiwa._ This is Kiku Honda. I cannot answer the phone, so please leave a message and I shall call you in return. Thank you_."

*beep*

Put the receiver down. Pick it up. Dial the number. Wait.

"_Heyo, it's the hero! Better known as Alfred F. Jones, but I can't come to the phone right now, 'coz I'm probably off busy savin' someone else. I'll get back to you if you leave a message. Check you later!_"

*beep*

Put the receiver down. Pick it up. Dial the number. Wait.

"_WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE FRANCE I'M TRYING TO RECORD MY ANSWERPHONE MESSAGE HERE AND THE LAST THING I NEED IS SOME CHEESE EATING SURRENDER MONKEY COMING IN HERE TRYING TO- wait, is it already recording?_"

*beep*

Put the receiver down. Pick it up. Dial the number. Wait.

"Bonjour, _you 'ave reached the residence of Francis Bonnefoy, 'oo is not the father. 'Owever, if you suspect that I am, please leave a message and I will be sure to return the favour, _mon cher."

*beep*

Put the receiver down. Pick it up. Dial the number. Wait.

"Nǐ hǎo_. This is Wang Yao. As you can most likely tell, I cannot answer phone right now, but if you leave message I will be sure to call you back-aru._"

*beep*

Put the receiver down. Pick it up. Dial the number. Wait.

"Privet_, comrade. Ivan Braginsky here. I fear I cannot pick up phone right now, but leave a message instead and I shall call you, da?_"

*beep*

That was it. He couldn't take any more. He put down the phone, took a few steps back, and sprinted until he was back in the lounge room. He threw himself onto the couch and curled up into a tight ball.

Why?

Why was he so alone?

It was taking all of Italy's mental strength to keep himself from crying his heart out. Germany and Japan were already his best friends, and Romano was his brother, wasn't he? Plus he had considered America, England, France, China and even Russia to be his friends ever since they had been forced to work together to fend off an alien invasion, despite the fact that ultimately _he_ was the hero. Had they already forgotten? Had they never cared in the first place? Or what if…

What if something had happened to them? Something horrible? He wouldn't be able to live with himself if they had all been hurt or captured or even both while he had been in Death City. Or worse, what if they were all dead?

Not a single one of them had picked up. Not once. He had tried to think of others, but all the other countries he knew either didn't like him one bit, didn't care about him at all or outright didn't have a single clue who he was. If he tried to tell Austria what was going on, the pianist would just brush him off and say that none of this was his concern. Prussia was friendly, but too loud and obnoxious and sometimes drunk. If Italy tried all the people he knew, he would just annoy everybody and they would text each other to tell them not to answer the phone 'coz it was Italy.

'Why do I always end up alone?' he thought. 'Everybody always leaves me one way or the other: Grandpa Rome, Romano, Holy Rome- okay, maybe with all of them it wasn't their fault. I feel like the only person who actually wants to spend time with me anymore is Germany. I don't know how, but he always finds time to be with me. And the way he looks at me isn't like a friend or a brother...'

"Ve~ I wish Kid could come home soon," he thought aloud. "It's nice to have a big brother who's nice to me for a change. But does this mean that Liz and Patty are kinda like my big sisters now?"

He was very glad that Kid had agreed, but at the same time he missed his real family. But it had been nearly a whole day since the young reaper had departed for his European mission – a whole day of cooking and eating pasta, drawing and wallowing out in the sunshine – and he was beginning to get a little bit worried.

The front door creaked.

They were back!

"Kid!" he cried excitedly as he half ran, half danced into the entrance hall. "Liz! Patty! Ve~ I'm so glad you're home, I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to-"

He froze.

The Thompson sisters were leaning against the door, clearly exhausted. Their clothes were torn at the edges and smudged with mud and grass stains, as though they had fought their way through a wood. Liz even had a couple of leaves sticking out of her hat. Their eyes were red and puffy as though they had been crying recently, and as he watched, Patty sniffed and wiped a tear away.

"Liz?" he asked. "Patty? What's wrong, where's Kid?"

At the mention of their fallen meisters' name, Patty burst into wailing sobs and had to be hugged by her sister. Liz gave Italy a look of pure hopelessness and despair, tears gathering in her deep blue eyes.

"What's happened?" he asked, knowing the answer wasn't going to be good.

"C-Can you let us get cleaned up first?" Liz asked, stammering a little.

Italy nodded and returned to wait in the lounge.

He sat there, patient as a mountain, and listened to the hot water rumbling in the pipes in the walls.

Something horrible _had_ happened. Not even he was ignorant enough not to notice that. And neither was he stupid. He always found it annoying that because he was ignorant and naïve, everybody naturally assumed that he was low on the intelligent quotient. It wasn't his fault that he was almost constantly surrounded by people who were smarter than him, was it?

While he waited, he started channel surfing, looking for something to watch.

"-come here to chew bubble gum and to kick ass, and I'm all out-"

"-ammit Jim! I'm a doctor, not a-"

"-fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderbe-"

"-and you're not on it, you're gonna regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your li-"

"-a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropis-"

"-have no fear, Zigzag your grand vizier is-"

"-isten very carefully, I shall say this only once-"

Italy turned the TV off. Despite the fact that several rather good films and shows were on, he couldn't bring himself to become absorbed in any of them. It meant he wouldn't be worrying about the girls and Kid, and that felt like the most important thing he needed to do at the moment.

He didn't have long to wait before the sisters reappeared, wearing a change of clothes and looking a lot cleaner – Patty's hair was still kinda wet, though.

"Ve~ can you tell me what happened?" he asked.

Patty remained silent while Liz took a deep breath.

"He knew something was wrong," she explained. "The moment we touched down, Kid got the feeling that something wasn't right. Patty and I didn't get it until we were a little way into the forest – the mission was back in the Black Forest, I think I should have told you – we began to feel like we were being watched. Like something invisible was following us. It started to get weirder when Kid found these notes lying around. They were all in different languages, but as far as he could tell they all said the same thing."

"What thing?" asked Italy.

"Watch Your Back," Patty replied.

"I think," said Liz, trying to remember, "there were two in English, one in French, one in German, one in Japanese, one in Chinese, one in Russian and one in Italian. I don't suppose it means anything to you?"

Italy shook his head.

Liz took a shuddering breath, clearly on the verge of tears.

"The feelings got worse as we found more," she continued, "and then after we found the last one, there was this-this _thing_, this big skinny guy in a suit with black tentacles coming out of his back, a-and Kid tried to shoot it, but nothing happened. And he couldn't get up because he-he'd slipped a-and hurt his leg, so he could only roll out of the way when that thing tried to stab him with its tentacles, but then he-he couldn't get out of the way fast enough and…"

She buried her face in her hands.

"Tall?" Italy muttered. "Black?"

Liz wiped her eyes.

"Yeah," she croaked. "It-it stabbed him. Right through the stomach. And then it picked him up and i-it started to walk away, but we didn't go after it because… because we were too afraid…"

"Too afraid," murmured Italy, "tall, black, claws…"

Liz stopped crying and stared at him.

"What are you talking about?" she asked. "It didn't have claws, it had-"

"Too afraid," Italy said, and clutched his head tightly, "I was too afraid, because it had claws and- no! No, no, please no!"

"Italy, are you okay?" asked Patty, and she knelt in front of him as he shook his head from side to side.

"…this can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening…" he chanted.

"Italy!" cried Liz. "Italy, calm down!"

"No!" he shouted. "This can't be happening! I didn't! _I didn't! I DIDN'T!_"

"Didn't what?" asked Patty.

Italy's eyes shot open.

"…no…" he whispered.

He slowly lowered his hands, which were shaking as though his arms were turning into stone and too stiff to move, to rest upon his knees. His toffee-coloured eyes stared straight ahead, and if they hadn't been filled to the brim with shock and horror they would be fixed intently on the ground. A single tear welled up and dripped onto his trouser leg. He didn't even blink.

"…I remember," he muttered. "I remember everything."

"You remember?" said Liz. "You mean about when you were attacked? Italy, what happened?"

He blinked.

"I was meeting Germany," he explained. "He said that he wanted to tell me something."

"Really?" said Patty. "What?"

"I-I don't know," said Italy, "but it was something he wanted to tell me in private. Someplace where nobody would find us, where no-one would think to look. That's what it said in the letter he sent me. It said 'Meet me in the Black Forest, I have something important to tell you'. I-I didn't really care what he said. I was just… I just really wanted to see Germany again 'coz he's my best friend ever in the whole wide world and…"

"And?" Liz prompted.

"Tell us what happened," Patty requested.

"We met," Italy continued. "He'd told me to wear my old blue uniform, the one from back in the War, and I did because it was old and comfy and it felt nice to wear it again after so much time. And so I-I put it on and I went out to meet him, but I had to lie to Romano because he doesn't like Germany and he would have got really mad and hit me or choked me if he knew I was going out to meet him, so I told him I was just going out to buy more tomatoes. Oh God, I haven't seen Romano since then, he must be really worried!"

"Calm down," said Liz, and he slowed his breathing to a steadier pace.

"I went out," he said, "and I had to run real fast because I had to go through Switzerland's territory and he always shoots at me and I don't know why, but I don't think he saw me this time. And when I met Germany, he was wearing his old uniform too, and he looked really handsome and intimidating, and he told me to take a walk with him. I-I was kinda nervous, I didn't really know what was going on, but we chatted about the weather and the woods and stuff and then he stopped me and he said 'I have to tell you something'. He started talking about how we had been friends in the past and how I'd been his only friend for ages apart from his big brother, and then he said something in German that I didn't understand. Do either of you girls know what 'ich liebe dich' means?"

The sisters shook their heads in bemusement.

"I don't know what it means," said Italy, "but he seemed really nervous and awkward when he said it, and then he got kinda mad when I asked what it means, but then when he was about to tell me what it means this- a monster appeared. It came out of the trees, all black and tall with massive claws and this really creepy human face! And then Germany stood in front of me and he told me to run away, but I didn't want to run because I didn't want him to get hurt, and then he turned around and started shouting at me that I had to run and…"

He wiped his eyes.

"It hit him!" he wept. "The monster hit him on the back and it scratched him, and he fell over and those scratches were _huge_ and he was bleeding so much and-and he looked at me and I could tell he was really scared, but he ordered me to run away as fast as possible and not to look back for anything and I… I ran! I just ran away and I left him there and I heard him scream when I was running but he told me not to look back so I just kept running and then I heard something behind me and I knew the monster was chasing me so I screamed too and I could hear it right behind me so I ran faster than I think I've ever ran in my whole life and then…"

Liz put a comforting hand around his shoulders and felt him quivering under her hand. He started to gently rub his left arm.

"…I tripped," he said. "I tripped on a root and I fell over and the monster was standing over me, so I-I raised my arm to try to protect myself, but it brought its claws down and… it hurt. It really hurt and it made me scream again, and I-I got up again and tried to run away some more, but I didn't get as far before I tripped again and I was too scared to get up, and I really thought I was gonna die and then… then…"

He raised his head, but only slightly.

"Then you guys arrived," he said. "You-you dropped out of the treetops and then there was a big bang and the monster was gone, but I was still scared and my arm hurt and then it all went black…"

"Our fault, I think," said Liz, regretting putting a soul wavelength bullet in the back of his head.

Italy sniffed.

"I ran," he snivelled, and hid his overheated and dripping face behind his hands. "I ran away and I let Germany get hurt. I didn't do anything to help, just ran away like a coward and now Germany's probably dead because of me!"

"But there wasn't anything you could have done!" Patty pointed out. "If you'd tried to fight that thing by yourself you would have died for sure!"

"That's the worst part," Italy wept into his hands. "I'm completely helpless. I'm useless garbage. I'm a horrible, disgusting person who doesn't deserve to live another day!"

Liz and Patty traded a look that said 'Isn't that something Kid might say?'

Italy lay down on the couch and curled up, tight as possible, crying into his knees. He wasn't wailing or screaming, which was probably the worst part. These were the sobs of a person who had lost the thing they held most dear and believed with all his heart that he wasn't going to get him back.

"And now Kid's gone too," he moaned. "Kid's gone and I was just sitting here and I didn't do anything to help him because all I am is a stupid worthless coward who couldn't even be any help to a _stick insect_ if he tried!"

"Italy-"

"I should have tried harder! I should have tried to talk him out of it! And now Kid's probably gone the same way as Germany!"

"Italy, Patty and I had an idea."

The wretched nation raised his head and looked at the teenage pistol with his eyes doing their best impersonation of Niagara Falls.

"Mm?" was all he said.

"We can't tell anybody about this," Liz explained. "If we do, one of two things will happen: either the two of us will be held responsible for letting Kid get captured, or after Kid's rescued he'll complain like crazy because he's the Grim Reaper's son and should have been able to rescue himself. He's like that, you know."

Italy just blinked at her. At this point, all Liz wanted to do was hug him and tell him that everything was going to be okay, but there were far more important things to do right now.

"So… we were wondering," she continued, "I know it's a crazy idea but… would you be our meister?"

Everything froze.

Italy had stopped crying. Liz wondered if maybe it was such a crazy idea that it would never work. Patty sat on the floor, looking up at Italy, waiting expectantly for him to answer.

Until, after about fifteen seconds:

"_WHAA?!_ But I could never be a meister! There's no way I'd ever be strong enough and what if I can't use you anyway? I asked Kid about it this one time when he made a really nice sandwich and he told me that if soul wavelengths aren't compatible the meister can't use the weapon and they just end up hurting themselves! And what will people say if they see me being your meister instead of Kid? Won't they ask lots of questions and be really suspicious?"

"It won't be forever!" said Liz. "Patty and I were thinking about it on the flight back to the US. Surely you've used a weapon before, haven't you? If you're a country you'd have to have been through a war or two-"

"That's different!" Italy insisted. "Those weren't weapons that could turn into people! And I never actually fought with anybody because I was too frightened! And didn't you say Kid got stabbed through the stomach? He's probably dead!"

"Italy," said Liz, taking his hands in hers, "Kid's a Grim Reaper. It'll take more than a tentacle to the stomach to kill him, but this time we need to save him. We need to do it as soon as possible. Patty and I trust you, Italy. Besides which, you were able to floor Kid with a single punch and beat a man to death with just a candle stick. You're stronger than you look and you're much stronger than you or any of the other countries think you are!"

Italy bowed his head, pulling his fingers out of her grip.

"I'm sorry," he said, lying back down on the couch. "I just _can't_."

Patty looked at her elder sister and mouthed "What now, genius?" Liz responded by pointing a thumb to one side, indicating that they should talk without Italy hearing. He watched as they walked to the corner of the room and started a near-silent discussion, using wild hand gestures where necessary, and it quickly became obvious that they were talking about him. Even though Patty clapped her fist at one point.

As if he was worth it.

He rolled over so he was facing the back of the couch, wishing that he could just hide away from the world in a tiny hole and let everybody forget that he ever existed.

And he felt the cushion sink under Liz and Patty's weight.

"Yeah," said Liz, "you're right."

"This was a stupid idea," said Patty.

Italy couldn't help but stare. What was wrong with them all of a sudden? They both sounded so bitter and resentful.

"I'm sorry," he said apologetically, "I wish I could be of more hel-"

"And you should!" Liz snapped. "Shoulda known it was the dumbest idea ever. How could we ever have expected _you_ to agree to do something worthwhile for once in your life?"

Italy sat up a little.

"That's kinda unfair-" he started.

"Is it though?!" Patty demanded moodily. "Is it _so_ unfair? How would you even know what's fair and what's not? You're just some dumbass coward who couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag!"

"Hey now, that's not true!" said Italy, sitting upright. "I beat up Turkey once! Only back then he was still the Ottoman Empire, and he tried to invade me and take me over, but I couldn't let that happen so I kicked him in the face! He left pretty quickly after that!"

"So what?" said Liz loudly. "That was _how many_ centuries ago? And even if you did that, you just said it was once! Once! Just once! And how many other times have you fought for yourself and won since then?"

Italy could feel something odd happening within himself: his body was growing tense and felt over-energised, his face was growing warmer and his hands were involuntarily closing up into tightly balled fists which began to ever so slightly tremble.

"Stop it," he muttered, "just stop it-"

"I don't see why we should!" cried Patty. "It's all true, isn't it? All you are is a pasta-eating pussy! That's what you'll be from now on, and that's how I'm gonna remember you: Italy, the pasta-eating pussy. That's accurate enough, don't you agree?"

"You know," Liz chimed in, "I think the whole reason Kid got hurt and kidnapped in the first place is because you rubbed off on him, Italy. Your wimpiness and stupidity is contagious and it turned him into a blithering idiot! Is it any wonder that Germany was hurt when he spent all his time hanging around a weak little asshole like you? And then you just abandoned him to die! Some friend you are!"

"The FUCK DO YOU KNOW?!"

Before Italy knew it, he was on his feet, more furious than he'd ever felt in his whole life and screaming so loudly his throat hurt.

"You two think you know me?!" he demanded, stamping his foot for punctuated emphasis. "You think you know ANYTHING about me? I'll tell you what you know, you know NOTHING! NOTHING! _ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING!_ What, do you two think I'm HAPPY Kid got hurt? Things might have been rusty at first, but he's been like a big brother to me and I don't think I've ever felt as safe as I do knowing he's got my back! Or do you think I'm GLAD Germany's missing? I FUCKING! LOVE! HIM! Germany's the BEST THING that ever happened to me in all my life! Sure, the first time we met we were enemies! Sure, he hit me with the butt of his rifle! Doesn't every relationship start with a little bit of conflict?! It doesn't change the fact that from the moment I met Germany, from the very first second, _I have never been so happy! _And you know what? You have NO RIGHT to talk about him like that! NO! _FUCKING!_ RIGHT! If I wanted to, I could go back to that place RIGHT NOW and go all _mafia_ on those bitches! And there is nothing – NOTHING – that either of you could do to STOP MEEE!"

The only sound in the room was his breath, rushing in and out of his mouth, and the only movement was his chest heaving up and down as he panted uncontrollably. And although it may not have been the case, it felt as though the only light was coming from the fire burning in his eyes.

Looking up at him as he towered over them, Liz and Patty could have sworn that he had grown larger. Neither of them could ever have thought he'd look so…

…_powerful._

Liz drew herself up to her full height, even though it wasn't as tall as the enraged nation, and looked him in the eye. A brief flicker of fear crossed her face: she had never seen anybody so angry in all her life.

"What's stopping you then?" she asked.

"Well, I-" Italy tried to voice his mind, but it seemed to have been replaced by a wildfire. "I- I guess I- nothing! There's nothing stopping me! I just said so, wasn't I fucking clear enough?!"

The world held its breath, as the girl known as Elizabeth Thompson… smiled?

"Jackpot," she grinned.

Italy took a step back.

"Huh?" he said. "W-what're you talking about?"

"Operation Piss Off Italy is a hundred per cent successful!" said Patty cheerfully, jumping to her feet.

"Tell me what you're talking about," Italy growled. "I demand you tell me _right now_-"

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Liz. "We knew there wasn't any chance you'd agree if we just tried to encourage you, so Patty and I decided to try a little something called reverse psychology."

"That's where you get someone to do something by telling them not to do it!" Patty explained.

"We figured all you really needed to do was stand up for yourself," Liz explained. "Make you see for yourself how strong you are or how strong you could be. And I have gotta admit, _that_… was goddamn scary. Hell, I was afraid you were gonna hit me!"

"So now we know you can talk the talk," said Patty, "do you think you can walk the walk?"

Italy…

He had no idea how to respond.

His entire life, he had never shouted so much or even thought about swearing. He could feel his body buzzing and had to keep himself from twitching. Was that what an adrenaline rush felt like?

He _liked_ it.

"You…" he said, slowly this time, "you really think I'm strong?"

Liz's smile grew wider.

"You're a country, aren't you?" she asked. "I would've thought 'strong' was in the job description."

Italy smiled. He clenched his fist again, but now his expression was of triumph.

"Ve~ then what're we waiting for?" he asked. "Let's do it! Let's GO!"

* * *

Pain shot faster than a speeding bullet through Kid's body as he coughed himself awake, and when he took his hand away from his face, he saw it was coated lightly in blood. The ground beneath his body was solid and cold, with the same feeling at his back and scalp as he realised he was lying in a corner. Feeling the surface proved that it was stone.

He felt unfamiliar fabric on his shoulder, resting over his suit. He sat up (with some difficulty, seeing as there was a rather large hole through his abdomen) and held it up to the almost non-existent light.

It was a military jacket with four huge gashes in the back.

"_Heilige Scheiße_."

His eyes flashed over to the other side of the room, where a hunched figure was sitting in another corner, barely moving. Had someone locked him up with a talking corpse?

"How are you still alive?" it asked, a masculine voice rife with European accent. "For that matter, who are you and why have they brought you here?"

Kid pulled himself into a better sitting position, leaning heavily into the crook between the two adjacent walls.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said, trying to maintain some formality despite the fact that his voice was wavering in pain. "My name is Death the Kid, but I'm known to some people as Kid."

The stranger moved into the light cast from the window, if it could be called that.

"_Gruß_," he said. "My name is Ludwig Beilschmidt."

Kid couldn't help but smile.

"Nice to meet you, Germany."

* * *

**Would you believe me if I said I had to sit back and take a breather after writing Italy's rant and when I finished this chapter? I had another one of those little moments where I asked myself "What the hell did I just write?" Even so, I'm pretty damn proud of this chapter. I know that it's going to put a lot of minds at ease about Germany.**

**And you can't say I didn't warn you.**

**Bʼryktn zʻnʻn bʼagrysn!**


	13. Ich Möchte Zu Befreien

If this was the same Germany that haunted Italy's memories, then Kid could only wonder if those memories were accurate. His bright blonde hair was loose and fell untidily over his face, and from the dull shine it emitted in the dim light it was obvious it had not been washed for quite a while. His face was stubbled and unshaven, smeared with muck and dirt, and bruised as though he had been punched and slapped some time recently. The slight sunken quality of his eyes and prominence of his cheekbones indicated that he had not eaten for several days, although his muscular stature remained well-built and toned – nations apparently did not suffer from muscle wastage. His clothes were horrendously dirty and ripped in several places.

All in all, it was pretty clear that he hadn't been a prisoner for long, but long enough and with the right treatment to emotionally and psychologically surrender. Two weeks at the most. It was hard to explain, but something in his eyes just said 'Please. Kill me.'

Right now, those sunken eyes were wide with shock, but they quickly narrowed in confusion cleverly disguised as anger.

"How do you know my name?" he demanded moodily, trying to move intimidatingly towards the injured reaper. "How do you know who I am? Are you a spy?"

He winced suddenly, clutching the crook of his neck if only because he couldn't properly reach his back. Were he not in agonizing pain himself, Kid would have immediately run to his aid, but all he could do was sit and watch. At least the overpowered healing response he had discovered through his 'experiments' was proving useful. He had already stopped bleeding, and was certain that the wound would be completely healed by the end of the day.

"Are you alright?" he asked, despite knowing full well the answer would be a resounding 'no'.

Germany's legs slipped out from beneath him and he collapsed with his back to the wall. There was such a thing as 'powering through pain' but the damage he had sustained was too much even for a person of his resilience.

"I believe…" he panted, "I asked you a question. How do you know… who I am?"

Kid winced as his spinal cord reconnected itself and the bones in his back started to knit together. The healing process was painful – sometimes it was almost as painful as the injury itself, occasionally even more so – but it would be worth it if it meant he could find a way out of here. The real problem was with scars. All of the more serious injuries would leave ugly scars which would take years to fade.

"If you will not answer, at least come into the light," Germany requested. "Surely you could allow me to see you."

"I think," said Kid, clutching his stomach, "that would be rather difficult right now."

There was a pause.

Then a bright light appeared in Kid's vision, forcing him to shield his eyes and squint to avoid being blinded. Once his eyes had adjusted he saw that Germany had pulled out a small iron cross on a loop of string from under his vest (it was identical to the one he had seen on Italy) and he was using it to reflect the light in his direction.

"What?" he whispered, shock apparently not allowing him any more volume. "But you are just a child! What purpose would these monsters have for you? Unless… are you a new nation?"

"I doubt that there would ever be a country called 'Kid'," the young reaper pointed out. "The only reason I know who you are is because of a friend of yours. The one with his eyes always closed and an asymmetrical curl in his hair. You call him Italy, don't you?"

"You know Italy?!" Germany's strength redoubled and he forced himself to lean towards Kid. "Is he alright? Is he alive? Tell me! I demand that you tell me RIGHT NOW-"

"He's fine," said Kid. "Recovering, at least. He was rather badly wounded, and he'll doubtless have scars on his arm for the rest of his life, but apart from that you'll be glad to know he's okay."

Germany heaved a heavy sigh of relief.

"Thank God," he muttered. "Ever since I woke up in this place, I feared that he might be lost or injured or worse. He's so useless and helpless when I'm not around. And then when I heard those people out there, planning some kind of attack, I confess that I was afraid he was certainly going to die. When they came back, all they said was that a man was dead, and by the tone they used, I could only assume that they meant…"

"You believed that Italy was dead," Kid finished for him, knowing that it would be correct.

The big man nodded in agreement.

"You are _never_ going to believe what I'm about to tell you," said Kid.

He started by telling Germany how he had found Italy, cowering in the shadow of a disgustingly asymmetrical kishin, and how the trauma (plus being shot in the head) had resulted in the poor man obtaining amnesia. He went over how he had tried to remove that DAMN curl, and was needless-to-say unsuccessful, and the relatively minor price he had paid for it. How he had ferried Italy back to the DWMA and the decision was made that he would spend some time in Death City while his wounds were healing, and the rather uncomfortable night where Kid hadn't been alone in his bed.

He even mentioned Italy's attempts at romance, unsuccessful though they were, and how the man had pulled him out of a bar while he was in a drunken stupor. He then explained everything that had happened on the night his house was invaded. How they had held him down and somehow extracted a soul from his body, then left him dazed and departed. He made sure to elaborate on the mess which had been made by Italy's vicious and uncontrolled attack, and how the invader had barely even resembled a human by the time it was done and the unfortunate nation had broken down into terrified, screaming tears. And how it had been eight days before he had spoken a single word to anybody else.

Germany tried to massage some coherence into his head.

"Forgive me for being sceptical," he said, "but I find it hard to believe that Italy, of all people, is capable of killing a person."

"That's what I thought," said Kid, emphasising the past tense. "But I suppose anybody is capable if they're pushed hard enough, and he was obviously terrified, so I'm not entirely surprised. Although I must say, I wish that he hadn't made such a mess."

"That kid," Germany sighed. "He's afraid of his own shadow. I am not surprised that he would become upset if he killed somebody, self-defence or not."

They sat in silence for a few moments: Germany resting against the cold wall, Kid twitching in discomfort every now and then as his insides rearranged themselves into their correct positions. He was glad that nobody else was around to see it, because it was _not_ a pretty sight. There was nothing pleasurable about having to hold your stomach closed just to prevent your guts from spilling out. At least it wasn't self-inflicted; those always took a lot longer to heal.

"Is something wrong with you?" Germany asked eventually.

"Not for long, I hope," Kid replied. "I recently discovered that my body heals quite a bit faster than that of a human. This wound should be gone by nightfall, assuming that it's daytime at the moment. I'm guessing you don't have any clue what time of day it is."

"Not one," said Germany. "I was meaning to say: that monster, its tentacle had pierced right through your body. At first I assumed that the reason you were still alive was because you're a new nation, but as you have refuted that notion, perhaps you could tell me what you are?"

What you are. It had been a long time since somebody had asked Kid what he was. Most people just focused on the whom.

"I'm guessing that you already know about the Grim Reaper?" he asked, and when Germany nodded he said, "I'm his son. It's my namesake. Death the Kid is a much less degrading name than Death Junior."

It was quite a while before either of them spoke again. Kid was a little unnerved at the sight of the stern sapphire eyes scanning him, searching for any tiny signs of insincerity.

"You are a Grim Reaper," the man muttered.

"And you're the anthropomorphic personification of a country," Kid pointed out. "Surely both are as unbelievable as each other."

"_Ja_, it's true," Germany admitted. "I hope Italy has not been too much trouble."

"Not so you'd notice," Kid said dishonestly.

It was odd to see such a resigned man smiling. His face almost appeared cleaner and younger, and his eyes became noticeably brighter. Perhaps his hope was being restored, if rather slowly.

"Before you say anything else," he said, "I do recognise you. You were the boy with the guns. The one who gave me this."

He took out the skull shaped locator.

"It is safe to say it did not work," he added bitterly as he passed it over to Kid.

The young reaper removed the back panel.

"No wonder," he said. "Somebody removed the battery. I'm willing to bet it was Liz or Patty who was responsible."

"This Liz and Patty," said Germany, "are you certain they would be able to keep Italy out of trouble?"

Kid hesitated, thoughtful for a moment.

"I hope so," he said. "I hope they're at least responsible enough to prevent him from doing anything stupid."

* * *

"Name?"

"Stephan Martinez."

"Purpose of visit?"

"Business."

The stamp hit the ink pad and was thudded down onto the passport.

"Welcome to Germany. Enjoy your stay."

Next passenger.

"Name?"

"Katriona Andrews."

"Purpose of visit?"

"Business."

The stamp hit the ink pad and was again thudded down onto the passport.

"Welcome to Germany. Enjoy your stay."

Next passenger.

"Name?"

"Feliciano Vargas."

"Purpose of visit?"

"Ve~ to hunt down the _bastardo_ who hurt my best friend and tried to kill me and to shoot them over and over again until my fingers fall off from exhaustion. Also to annihilate his or her little army for hurting the meister of these two young ladies here and to get him back to them, preferably in a way which doesn't require me getting hurt because if I do there'll be even more hell to pay than there already was."

Another tourist, huh? The stamp hit the ink pad and was thudded down onto the waiting passport.

"Welcome to Germany. Enjoy your stay."

Next passenger.

* * *

Germany stared blankly at the empty ceiling.

"It was two weeks ago," he said, "I think. It's easy to lose track of time in this place. There was something… important that I wished to discuss with Italy in private, so I wrote him a letter telling him to meet me in the Black Forest and make sure he was not followed. I waited for him, but I was uncertain that he would be able to come: his elder brother hates him, but has always been extraordinarily possessive. Sometimes I believe he is one step away from binding Italy in chains and locking him in his basement."

Kid smiled, but only slightly. The more he heard about this Romano, the more he hoped he wouldn't have to meet the man.

"Needless to say," Germany continued, "I was very pleased when he arrived. The way he smiled when he saw me, how his eyes lit up like the sun, the warmth I felt when he pulled me into a hug – it was unforgettable. He chattered incessantly as we walked about all sorts of menial things: how bright the sun was, how peaceful it was in the forest, how much pasta he had eaten for dinner last night. To tell you the truth, I didn't really care. I was only glad to be in his company."

Maybe, if he had a little more strength, he wouldn't have spoken so sweetly.

"I'm not sure I was even listening properly," he said, voice tinged with regret. "I was too busy thinking about myself, wondering what I should say, how I could put my thoughts into words without frightening him or confusing him and making him run away, like he always does when he's frightened or confused. I am just wondering now what might have occurred if I had been paying attention to him: would I still be locked up in this place? Or would I be with him right now, treasuring every moment of the time I spent with him and wishing it could last forever?"

Kid found himself shuffling a little closer, sensing that the man was in need of comfort.

"And when I finally found the courage," he said, "When I could finally bring myself to tell him how I felt about him, we were attacked. By some hideous creature which had no purpose living in my forest. I tried to tell Italy to run, but he only complied when I was struck down."

He turned to face away, allowing the young reaper to see the four huge gashes which pained him so, which were visible through his ripped vest that was stuck to his skin by dried blood. They were far bigger than they had initially appeared: the largest stretched from his left shoulder all the way down to the small of his back. The gruesome sight, combined with its complete lack of symmetry, made Kid feel sick to the core.

"The last thing I remember is seeing you running the same way he had departed," said Germany, "and then I woke up in this dungeon. I have been in here ever since. If I were an ordinary person I would certainly be dead by now – nobody brings me any food or water, the only reason anybody checks on me is to make sure I have not committed suicide and they never fail to punch me several times, just to remind me who is in charge."

He went back to staring at the ceiling.

"You know," he said, "it's very strange that it should be raining in here."

"What are you talking about?" asked Kid in confusion. "It's not possible for it to be rai-"

He cut himself off, shifting in discomfort as he watched tears roll down the intimidating man's cheeks.

"Yes," he said in fake agreement. "It's very unusual."

He cautiously felt the wound in his stomach, discovering in the process that it wasn't very close to closing, not that he had expected anything different. By using the uneven surface of the wall as a series of handholds, he was able to stand up and he staggered over to the door. Well, half staggered, half collapsed onto the solid wood. His scrabbling fingers started searching for a handle, a lock, or anything which could spell a way out.

"It's no good," Germany told him. "The lock and handle are both on the outside. The door itself is twelve solid inches of flame-hardened oak. I have tried several times to punch through, but it has proved too strong for me."

Indeed, there were several fist shaped impressions in the wood, most of them on the lower half. Kid's face fell, and he started to stumble back to the opposite wall. He was almost there when the bottom half of his body stopped responding and he almost fell on his face – thankfully, Germany caught him and helped him sit down properly.

"Thank you," he said gratefully. "I never thought I'd lose control of my own body."

A shadow in the crack beneath the door indicated that somebody was outside, and both males remained silent until it had passed. Kid leaned his head back against the cold stone while Germany pulled his legs up to his chest. His discomfort with his situation could not have been plainer.

"Italy," he said after a while, "is he happy?"

"He is," Kid replied, "most of the time. He's been becoming more depressed recently – more than likely, he's homesick. Not long ago I found a sketchbook where he had drawn pictures of all of his friends. You may be interested to know that the first one was of you."

Germany went back to staring blankly at the ceiling. His vision began to fill with images of a certain Italian coward, smiling and laughing and generally acting like an idiot.

"_Hey Germany, come listen, I wrote a song especially for you!_"

"_Hey hey Germany, what're you doing? Can we go play football, can we?_"

"_You can order me around and I'll disappoint you!_"

"_Germany, Germany, Germany is a really really nice place…_"

"_I'm so sorry, you were right! I am not a box of tomatoes fairy! It was all lies! Lies! LIES!_"

"_Hey _y_ou guys! I just talked with Prussia! Why are you guys not drinking beer? And why are you only eating tomatoes? Who am I? Where am I? I feel like I'm freaking out in the Twilight Zone!_"

"_Why? As long as I'm here, I get fed and nobody picks on me! I like being here!_"

"_Nope! Unless you want to._"

He closed his eyes, wallowing in sweet, precious reminiscence.

It felt like forever since he had seen that childish man's smiling face, his bright brown eyes glinting like the sun, his heartwarming if slightly mindless laughter, his soft reddish-brown hair which shone in even the dimmest light, the adorable yet rather awkward little curl that sprouted uncontrollably to one side.

The last words he had said to him apart from "Run! Go, now! Italy, this time I am ordering you to run!" The last words were…

"_Ich liebe dich,_ Italy."

Somehow his courage had failed him at the last moment, and he was unable to speak in anything other than his native tongue. Months of trying to find a way to confess and he blew it. And Italy had just stood there, staring at him blankly, and when he had tried to explain what the words meant and how it pained him to get them out, their precious moment was blown to pieces. He doubted he would ever gain such a chance again.

Ever since that rather disastrous date – or maybe since the near-complete invasion of the Pictonians – all he wanted was to stroke that auburn hair, to feel the shining strands beneath his palm, and to twirl that curl around his finger and watch with satisfaction as Italy fell silent and his cherubic little face flushed redder than a raspberry. He wanted to hold his slim, light body against his own and feel the smaller man's heartbeat, pounding against his chest, to gaze endlessly into those stunning caramel eyes, to feel and taste those soft and tomato-tainted lips against his…

And now, in all probability, that wasn't going to happen. Ever. Germany was no fool: he could tell when people were planning to kill him. Decades of fighting and bloodshed had taught him to recognise the signs – a malicious glint in the eye, a slight curl of the mouth, certain inflections in a tone of voice – they all became obvious if you knew what to look for.

There was every chance Italy would never know the truth, would never know about his feelings, and would never have a chance to return his affection.

He became aware of a hand on his shoulder. It could only have belonged to the adolescent reaper. No other person in the word could have such ungodly cold hands. It was obviously an attempt at comfort, but it didn't do any good.

He buried his face in his hands and wept.

* * *

The sky was grey and dreary, a storm gathering gradually, effectively reflecting Italy's current mood when he and the girls departed Stuttgart Airport.

"That was really awkward," said Liz.

"Well, sis, what do you expect?" asked Patty. "We've never travelled on airplanes before now, so we've never had to go through a metal detector."

"True," said Liz, "but we didn't think we'd set them off!"

"Neither did I!" said Patty. "Boy, were those security guys confused!"

The sisters shared in laughter, despite the drizzle which started to fall from the sky, until they happened to look in Italy's direction.

He had his back to them, apparently not noticing how the drizzle made his hair and clothes stick to his body yet seemed to ignore the curl which anyone would guess had a mind of its own. In fact, he barely moved at all. At least it wasn't as worrying as the night of his first kill. He seemed to be thinking.

He turned around. The determination in his eyes was almost frightening.

"The Black Forest, right?" he asked.

Liz and Patty nodded.

He raised a hand to his face and tapped his mouth ponderingly.

"West," he decided. "Ve~ I spent enough time here as Germany's prisoner and/or best friend forever to know that the Black Forest is west of Stuttgart. And not too far either. That's where we should go."

His voice was harsh, cold and damn near emotionless.

'Maybe we pushed him a little too far,' Liz thought. 'He's not himself. I haven't known him for very long, so I can't make a definite decision, but maybe this is what was lying under the surface all this time. It's like he's turned into some sort of soldier.'

"Italy," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Ve~ better than ever," he replied with a fierce smile. "I feel like I could take on the world! And who knows? Perhaps I'll even get a chance to do that!"

Liz smiled in return, but only to hide her worry. Hopefully, he would be back to his old self if he was reunited with Germany.

_If_.

* * *

Trying to sleep while in pain is, as many people know, extremely difficult. You can try to ignore the pain, but just as you're about to drift off, some douchebag part of your mind will speak up and say something like 'Hey, remember that massive injury you sustained a few hours ago? That really hurt, didn't it? You remember how much it hurt! This is how much it hurt!' And once that's done, you may as well just get up and make yourself a cup of coffee.

This, combined with the steady dripping of rain from the miniscule window, quite effectively prevented Kid from getting any rest. He hadn't so much as closed his eyes before something else in his abdomen twinged painfully and he was yanked back into the land of the living.

'Dammit,' he internally swore after the fifth attempt in however long he'd been here.

He cracked his eyes open and saw that Germany was doing something… unusual. Holding his shredded military jacket, he pressed the sleeves against the wall beneath a rivulet of rainwater and waited until it was almost soaked through, then held it over his face, twisted the wet fabric and squeezed what little water had gathered into his open mouth.

Maybe he had dehydrated himself from crying.

"I don't know what you're staring at," he said bitterly. "This is the only hope for water in this place. And I'm thirsty."

He wiped his forehead with the still-damp sleeves, and then pressed them up against the cold stone. He was plainly using all of his self-control to avoid violently shivering.

"I assume that you cannot sleep?" he said.

"You assume correctly," Kid replied.

"How is your wound?"

"Almost healed, I think. The scar isn't going to be pretty."

"Please," said Germany, "I would appreciate it if you did not talk about scars right now."

Of course. Stupid. Should have known better. But then, what else was there to talk about? They couldn't just sit in silence and wait for the Big Sleep to come and claim them.

Kid felt the hole in his shirt, hoping against hope that it could be repaired, and something rustled. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small wad of paper.

"Germany?"

"_Ja_?"

"Do you know anything about these?" He passed the notes over to the muscular nation. "I found them dotted all over the place out in the forest. I know they might have been blown by the wind, but they could have surely stood to be a little more organised in their placement. Sorry about the blood."

Germany flicked through the notes, but took the last one out and stared at it.

"I wrote this note in the hopes that someone might find it and know that this place wasn't safe," he explained. "I managed to fit it through the window, but I was certain it was lost to the wind. Judging by the number you have gathered, I am not the only one to have had this idea."

"Not the- There are others?" Kid asked. "In this place?"

"Presumably." Germany laid out the small sheets on the floor – two lines of four, perfectly straight, Kid noted – for both of them to see and pointed to each of them in turn. "From what I can tell, these notes where written by myself, Japan, the tea-drinking _arschloch_, the hamburger _dummkopf_, Herr Francey-Pants, that damned creepy Russian, the _wahnsinnige_ with the wok and… _Scheiße_."

"What is it?" Kid asked (he didn't know much German, but could tell from the context that 'Scheiße' was a curse). "Is something wrong?"

"It is very likely," Germany replied, examining the final note. "I highly doubt that these people, whoever they were, would want anything to do with Seborga, and unless Italy was somehow able to transport this note from this 'Death City' place, it means… Romano."

"Is he really as bad as you make him out to be?"

"Well, he is not so much 'bad' as you say, but he is grumpy, unintelligent, tsundere, quick-tempered and if anything more useless than his brother. And for some inexplicable reason, he hates me. Seems to believe that I am seducing Italy from him."

'And I can tell,' Kid thought, 'just by looking at you: it's not entirely a lie.'

"Why would he be here?" he asked. "Why would any of them be here, in this place? Why would _we_ be here?"

"I do not know!" said Germany. "And it frustrates me to think that such a thing is happening in my own home. My own Black Forest. All I can tell is that from the conditions of this place, it cannot be anything good-"

There was a scraping noise on the other side of the door, as of a bolt being slid across.

"-and I think we are about to find out," the big man finished.

* * *

**F*cking FEELS, man. I got so many of them after writing this.**

**Poor Germany. T_T At least he's not alone anymore. They tried putting Romano in with him, but needless to say, it didn't exactly work out very well. It was quite fun to look up the various German put-downs, like the words for 'asshole' and 'lunatic' but the context makes it seem a little less fun, don't you think?**

**Do not worry about the cliffhanger. There's only few more to go. I won't say how many because that'll ruin it.**

**Atsiliepimai yra sveikintinas!**


	14. Out of the Frying Pan

…_squelch…squelch…squelch…_

"Of course the drizzle became a full-blown rainstorm," Liz said bitterly as they navigated the trees, "these are only my favourite shoes after all."

Patty shivered and rubbed her arms.

"Stupid European weather," she grumbled.

"Patty, _ssh!_" Liz pointed in Italy's direction. "In case you forgot, there's a European guy literally right there! I don't think he'd appreciate it if you talked smack about his home's weather!"

"Ve~ I can hear you."

They fell silent.

This was how it had been for the past couple of hours. Any time a conversation was begun, Italy would say something which completely ruined the mood and made it impossible to speak for the next half an hour at least. Then Liz and Patty were reduced to whispering to each other in near silence, but would soon stop out of fear that the nation would hear them.

"I don't think I've ever seen anybody so angry," Patty murmured to Liz. "Not even when Kid saw something which was a mess. His eyes were really cute before but now they're all fiery and I'm not sure if I like it."

"Yeah," Liz replied. "I think we definitely pushed him too far."

"Sis?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think Kid's going to be okay?"

Liz was hesitant in her answer.

Maybe she hadn't realised it before, but when she tried to imagine life without Kid, all she could think of were those days on the streets of Brooklyn. And where would she and her sister be if he hadn't taken them in? In body bags at the local morgue? Wrapped in duct tape and weighed down with rocks at the bottom of the Hudson? There had been people in that city – a considerable number of people that had included the cops, the mafia, sometimes cops who were associated with the mafia – who had wanted them dead. They were trouble. Big trouble.

And she had seriously considered leaving her new meister and returning to life as a Brooklyn Demon. In all reality, would she be able to survive for much longer if she did?

And what about Patty? She wouldn't be able to cope!

No. Life with Kid was better. Much better. For that reason, he _had _to be okay.

When she looked back at Italy, he was kneeling down in front of a tree, examining the roots as critically as an English teacher examines a Stephen King novel. Craning to one side, Liz could just make out a deep red stain which had avoided being washed away by the rain. With a thrill of horror, she realised that it was blood. Kid's blood. It trailed away between the trees, a fractured stream of drying red fluid.

"We're gonna have to move quickly," she said to Italy. "This trail won't last long once the rain reaches it. What's the plan?"

"Ve~ um…"

"_You don't have a plan?!_"

"I didn't see this coming!" Italy exclaimed. "I-I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to… for now, I'm gonna follow this trail and see where it takes me, 'kay?"

"'Kay."

"Sure thing, cutie!"

"I think you girls should stay as weapons from here on out," said Italy. "Ve~ this is my job and I don't want either of you to get hurt. I don't think Kid would ever forgive me. Could you imagine how he'd react if one of you died?"

The girls nodded in agreement, and in flashes of light, they quickly became twin pistols resting safely beneath Italy's fingers.

"Right," he said, smiling with pride. "Let's move!"

He started to run, following the broken trail of blood spatter.

"Uh… sis?" said Patty.

"Yeah, what is it?" asked Liz.

"Are you gonna tell him he's holding us upside down or do I have to?"

"Forget it, he's rolling."

* * *

"_Verdammt_, will you get OFF? I can walk by myself!" Germany demanded, yanking a pale hand off his shoulder.

"Speaking of which," Kid said (although it was more of a choke) "could you…"

"Of course," said Germany, and he wrapped an arm around the diminutive reaper's shoulders to prevent him from falling over. He may have been healing quickly, but still had a way to go before the wound was gone completely.

"Sorry," said Kid. "Normally I have more time to rest after an injury like this. I'm still only half-baked."

"Don't worry," Germany said, "I'm used to it. I've lost count of how many times I've had to come to Italy's aid. If I were you, I wouldn't expect a rescue from him. We're going to have to find a way out of this by ourselves."

"That's if there actually _is_ a way out," Kid pointed out.

Germany nodded in solemn agreement.

Several minutes had passed since they were removed from the comfort (HA!) of their dungeon, and they had been walking ever since. Well, Germany had been walking – with surprising ease for somebody whose back had practically been shredded off his body – and Kid had been stumbling for most of the journey. The movement had caused parts of his wound to act up and he had started bleeding again, leaving a thin trail of blood stretching down corridors, around corners and up a couple of staircases, and he was worried that he might have to reach in and prevent his ribs from collapsing like a falling tree.

Needless to say, it was pretty damn painful.

"Nngh…" he grunted through gritted teeth. "This is making such a mess."

"I do not think these two would allow you to clean it up," said Germany drily, indicating the pair of tall, faceless, tentacle-waving creatures which were presumably men that were flanking them on either side. Every now and then a tendril or hand would prod one of them in the back, urging them to walk faster, and pale fingers would steer them around corners in what felt like a winding maze.

"You've been here for longer than I have," said Kid, "so where do you suppose they're taking us?"

The big man looked over his shoulders at the creatures.

"These things must be soldiers," he stated. "Either that or servants. In which case…"

"We're being taken to their master."

"_Ja_, precisely."

It was only a few more feet before Kid's lower body gave out and he fell to his knees, clutching his abdomen and groaning in pain. Blood seeped out from between his fingers as the slender men pushed him in the back, pressuring him to stand up and keep going.

"Stop that!" Germany shouted in his most commanding voice. "Can you not see that this boy needs medical attention?"

"Dammit…" Kid muttered, "Hurts…"

"Will you be able to keep going?" asked Germany in concern. "I do not think we have much further to walk, judging by how impatient these creatures are becoming, but it is clear that you will not be able to move unaided. Do you wish for me to help you?"

Trembling in pain, the young reaper gathered the strength to open one eye.

"I-I think I…" he struggled to talk, "I may have to swallow my pride and… _gnh_, request some assistance."

Without waiting for anything else, Germany slipped his hands under the young reaper's legs and back and lifted him off the ground. He was surprised by how light Kid's body felt, and at the same time how he was unbelievably and frost-bitingly cold. It was like the boy was made of dry ice.

Kid sniggered.

"What is so funny?" asked Germany.

"Nothing," said Kid, "it's just that I can tell you've had practise."

Germany allowed himself a faint smile as he resumed his walk down the windowless, near-lightless corridor.

What was that film America was so proud of? The one that was based on a book by an extremely famous author? Ah yes, The Green Mile. With a rather ominous title that referred to the final walk a condemned prisoner would take before they spent their last moments strapped down to an electric chair.

The tall man couldn't help but feel like he was walking his own personal Green Mile. He certainly wished he wasn't carrying this child with him too.

Kid, meanwhile, was growing less apprehensive about his wound, which had thankfully just stopped dripping onto the floor between Germany's feet, and more worried about what might be awaiting them once they reached their destination. There was a disturbing wavelength coming from the floor above and they appeared to be getting closer to the source. It was saturated in anger and hatred, riddled with bitterness and resentment, and bore an overwhelmingly massive sense of pride and arrogance.

"There's a kishin up ahead," he muttered.

"A what?"

"I think I mentioned it to you. A kishin. Or at least, a corrupted human that's on the very edge of becoming one. This can't be good. If these creatures are its servants…"

"…then our dilemma just got a whole lot worse."

"Correct."

They were escorted up a final staircase and were faced with a short corridor that only had one door leading off it, right at the far end. The wavelength was coming from beyond that door, and Kid found himself hoping against hope that they wouldn't have to see what was on the other side.

"What is this place?" Germany said to their escorts, if they could be called that. "Why are we here? Who is your master? Tell me! Now!"

All he received in reply was another shove in the back, causing him to wince reproachfully as the thin tendril brushed against one of his tremendous wounds. He started moving forward again, but their guards remained where they were. Apparently they were to continue from here on their own.

"I think," said Kid, "I think I can walk from here."

"You are sure?"

"Not entirely, but we don't have far to go, do we?"

Germany complied and set Kid on the ground. The young reaper was still bent double and clutching his stomach, but he didn't look anywhere near as sickly as he had about an hour ago.

"I feel I should thank you," he said with a smile.

"Do not bother," Germany replied. "Any friend of Italy is a friend of mine."

He helped Kid stumble over to the door, and when they reached the wooden entrance they hesitated. Looking back proved that the two creatures, no longer their escorts, were still standing at the far end of the short corridor. Germany reached for the handle-

"Are you not even going to knock?"

The voice had come from within the room on the opposite side of the door. It was loud and commanding, but at the same time it was feminine, sultry and seductive. It was a voice of domination.

"You must be the most despicable people I have ever seen," it continued.

Germany raised a fist to knock, but the door swung open all by itself to reveal a bedchamber.

"Won't you come in?"

The nation and reaper traded worried glances, frightened of what might be waiting for them.

"I said come _in_."

Something pushed them inside – Kid came dangerously close to falling over and Germany tried to clutch his back – and the door swung and slammed closed behind them.

No way out.

The room was dark – the only illumination came from a small hole in the ceiling which let in sunlight. The only way they could tell it was a bed chamber was because of the lavishly-decorated four-poster which was the only furniture in the room. It was surrounded by curtains which hid the sole occupant. Kid found himself suddenly understanding Italy's cowardice as he hung onto Germany's arm for stability and comfort, and it took all of his self-control to avoid hiding behind the muscular nation.

"No need to be afraid, boys," said the mysterious voice. "I won't bite…"

A woman appeared from within the curtains.

"…much," she finished.

Her skin was as pale as it could get without being properly white, contrasting with her eyes which were black and empty, yet shone like polished obsidian. Her hair was silver and fell in long waves around her shoulders, blending almost perfectly with her long silver dress. Her face was youthful, almost childlike, and the shape of her body was reminiscent of an hourglass.

And there was something… _off_ about all of this. She looked like a ghost and smelled like seaweed.

"Who are you?" Germany demanded rudely. "I am guessing that you are the one who is in charge of those monsters?"

"Tch, so abrasive," she said chidingly, and to the alarm of both males she walked right up to the tall nation and began to feel his body, stroking and groping his muscles.

"Especially for such a strong and handsome young man as yourself," she murmured seductively.

Germany seized her wrist and pulled her hand away from his body.

"I am not interested in any perverted ideas you may have," he growled, "so I would appreciate it if you could keep your hands away from my body." He pushed her back and she stumbled to avoid falling over.

"Germany, watch yourself!" Kid whispered, and the nation looked down at the young reaper clutching his arm to see his eyes wide with horror.

"What?" he muttered, realisation hitting him like a tonne of bricks. "You mean-"

"Yes!" said Kid. "The wavelength I sensed, it's coming from her! That woman is a kishin!"

"My my, someone's perceptive," the strange woman said, still retaining her seductive tone.

In a flash of movement too quick to see with the naked eye, she swept the injured reaper aside and slammed him into the stone wall, where he slid to the ground (leaving a long smear of scarlet in his wake) and clutched his stomach, hissing and groaning in pain.

"Kid!" cried Germany.

When he saw the woman with her hand on her mouth, eyes wide in fake innocence, he realised he was dealing with a true psychopath the likes of which the world had never seen. He strengthened his stance and put up his fists, preparing himself for a fight and trying his best to ignore the throbbing pain which was coming from his back.

"I warn you," he snarled, "If you wish to kill me or my friend, you will find yourself in for a battle of the ages. I survived one Cold War, two World Wars and multiple World Cups, so you are sadly mistaken if you believe that I am going to go down easily! I've endured more conflict than you could imagine and I am still stronger than you could ever be, so you are a fool if you do not think I would not sooner die than surrender to you or anybody like you!"

The woman watched as he panted, steeling himself for a fight.

"You idiot," Kid chastised him. "Do you think you can take on something like that by yourself and win? There's no possible way to defeat a kishin by punching it in the face."

"Maybe not," said Germany proudly, "but I can damn well try!"

The strange woman raised an eyebrow approvingly.

"This is unexpected," she said with a smile. "Since when were you so boisterous, Germania? And so talkative, too. I don't think I've ever heard you speak so much at a time."

At the sound of his grandfather's name, Germany's eyes widened in shock.

"What is this?" he demanded. "How do you know my grandfather? WHO _ARE_ YOU?!"

She calmly walked over to him and started to stroke his cheek, and Germany found himself unable to move beyond closing his eyes and praying that everything would be over soon.

"You're his grandson?" she said. "Ah yes, I can see the resemblance. Such a handsome man. Your grandfather was too. Perhaps, by any slim chance, he told you about me at some point. After all, I was only the most powerful empire ever to walk the oceans, but you might not remember since it was a little over two thousand years ago."

Germany gasped. He leapt backwards and felt the door for a handle, but his groping hand couldn't seem to find it, let alone grip it properly, and even if he had found it he wouldn't have been able to open it because of the locks.

"You-you can't be…" he stammered.

"_Atlantis?!_"

The woman nodded and smiled slyly.

"That's right," she whispered, tracing a finger down Germany's chest and resting her hand on his solid abs. "I was away for a long time, but I'm back now. Would you like me to tell you how?"

She was once again thrown backwards as the larger nation shoved her away, clenching his fists and preparing once more for a punch-up. All Kid could do was sit and watch the spectacle, waiting for his wound to finish healing, regretting that he could ever be so useless.

"In your time you were the most powerful empire in the world," Germany stated, sounding almost as though he had rehearsed the words beforehand. "Thousands of years ago you dominated a gigantic landmass in the centre of what would later come to be known as the Atlantic Ocean, named after you. However, over time more nations and new empires began to appear and you grew threatened by their strength. When you tried to fight back, you were reduced to a land beneath the ocean to wait until the Earth would change and eventually revive you to walk above the sea once more."

Despite his repeated rejections, Atlantis seemed adamant on invading Germany's personal space and trying more futile attempts to seduce him. She walked right up to him this time, appearing almost to loom over him despite him being over a head taller, and she started to play with his hair.

"But that's not the whole story," she said. "Would you like to complete that little tale? You should know that it comes at a price."

"Sorry, but I am not interested," Germany replied sternly with all the force he could muster.

"It's not that big a price," Atlantis whispered. "Only a kiss."

At this, Germany's fury nearly exploded. He shoved her away so fiercely that she fell to the floor, not breaking her expression at all. Certainly, the fact that she was female was not getting in the way.

"There is only one pair of lips on this planet that I wish could make contact with mine," he stated firmly, "and they do NOT belong to you! Nor shall they ever!"

"So strong," said Atlantis in a matter-of-fact tone. "So much like your grandfather. But unfortunately, you're not just a country, are you? You're also human. And whoever decided to give us human forms was a truly sick individual. Any person can be controlled if you know their weaknesses. Even a tough one like you or a young one like that child over there."

"Well," said Kid, who up until this point had been feeling rather forgotten, "I'm not actually a-"

"Stay quiet," said Germany. When he saw the pleading in the man's eyes, Kid decided that it would be best to comply. He understood: the tall man was growing increasingly uncomfortable and falling fast into the dark depths of fear.

'If somebody's going to come and rescue us,' he thought, 'you had better hurry.'

* * *

Italy paused.

The ground was soft and wet beneath his feet, leaking mud onto the toecaps of his shoes. It squelched unpleasantly and made him thankful that none of it had leaked into his socks.

He bent down, dipped his fingers in the saturated earth, and pulled them across his face in downwards, diagonally alternating directions.

"What's that?" asked Liz. "Did he just paint a 'V' on each of his cheeks in mud?"

"Sis, don't you know anything?" said Patty. "V is for Vendetta! We saw that movie three weeks ago, don't you remember? The one with the mask?"

Italy didn't say anything.

He continued onward.

* * *

She could extend her fingers to become tentacle-like appendages.

Germany discovered this when he had to dive out of the way to avoid being impaled. Upon extension, Atlantis' fingers became dark and mottled green, a texture not unlike the seaweed she reeked so strongly of. She laughed maniacally as he ducked and weaved, doing his best to avoid being hit, but faltered as he tried to dodge left and the tip of her finger grazed his cheek. It was a small cut, but enough to draw blood.

"Why not just give up?" she asked tormentingly. "That's what everybody else did! And it was so much fun to see them squirm and writhe in agony afterwards!"

"I already told you!" shouted Germany. "I will NEVER surrender!"

"They surrendered!" cried Atlantis with a manic glint in her dead black eye. "You saw them out there! They all surrendered and now they're better than they ever were before! Aren't they magnificent? Aren't they _wonderful_?"

"Those twisted souls…" Kid muttered in horror. "You're the one responsible?"

"They were willing to betray their own species," Atlantis explained in what was probably supposed to be an innocent tone. "I simply rewarded them as traitors deserve."

She ducked as Germany's fist swung towards her face, but couldn't avoid his foot as it was carried by the momentum of his punch and hit her in the chest. This left her winded, but not for long and she kicked his legs out from under him – he caught himself on his hands and propelled his body away from her in an expertly executed backflip. When she tried to shoot her tentacle-fingers in his direction, he just punched them aside. He seized two of them, paying no heed to the sliminess and the disgusting mottled texture, and yanked her closer for a skull-splitting head-butt, but the impact left him reeling and he almost fell over.

Unfortunately this gave her the chance to grab him by the ankles and hold him before her face.

"Would you like to know something?" she whispered. "It was so much fun to play with your grandfather's head. To plant the seeds of poison within his mind. If you like I'll let you know what I made him do."

"What?" Germany demanded angrily. "Tell me what you are talking about!"

Atlantis pulled him closer – so close, in fact, that he could smell her seawater scented breath.

"I could see you doing it," she simpered, curling a tentacle around his neck. "You look so much like him. I could just picture you, holding that sword's handle as though it were your most precious possession, sinking it deep into that idiotic Roman's heart…"

She tightened her coil, causing Germany to choke and gasp for air as his face began to redden.

"But I like this a lo-"

She was cut off by a large bed slamming into her body, causing her to drop the large man who regained his breath and every ounce of strength in less than a second. When she untangled herself from the wreckage, it was to see Germany climbing to his feet next to Kid, with the teenager calmly straightening his suit.

"Thank you for ignoring me in such an impolite manner," he said with a cocky smile. "You gave me all the time I needed for my wound to finish healing. And considering that you most likely have no idea who I am, don't you think that may have been a rather unwise decision?"

Atlantis prepared for another attack.

"Then perhaps you could tell me who I'm about to kill?" she requested.

"That's an ambitious claim," said Kid, tensing himself for a fight, "considering I'm a Grim Reaper!"

* * *

"Ve~ the trail stops here."

Italy was kneeling down, examining a small splatter of blood which stained the roots of a tree near a stone arch which stood alone and decaying nearby. It was strange, but there was clearly something on the other side. Something concealed. The stone structure looked as though it was pretending to be smaller than it actually was. And he'd learned long ago that appearances could be deceiving.

"I don't like this," Liz moaned. "That thing gives me the creeps! There's monsters and ghosts and nasty things in there, I know it!"

"Wow, sis," said Patty, "you're such a softy!"

"I am not!"

Hesitation over with, Italy stepped through the arch.

* * *

Kid charged, screaming, at the pale woman whose smile began to fade. He catapulted his body into the air and kicked at her head, but missed his mark when she swatted him away and he had another violent meeting with the wall. This time, however, he was pinned by the extended fingers of her left hand.

"Get the hell off me!" he shouted, struggling against the fleshy restraints.

Germany's charge was a little more violent, but ran with equal success. No matter how he punched or kicked, Atlantis would somehow be in a different place when his fist or boot should have made contact. Eventually, possibly because she just got bored, she seized him by the neck.

He pulled at her long, slimy fingers in a futile attempt to get free as she lifted him clear of the ground.

"But you know why I had to play with your grandfather's mind, don't you?" she said, still in her sultry tone of voice. "So many strong and powerful nations just popping up out of the ground. It was the only thing a helpless little woman such as myself would ever be able to do!"

"You are no woman," Germany gasped. "You are a monster!"

Atlantis smiled.

"Well then," she said, "if that's the case, why don't we see just how much of a monster I can be?"

While her slimy fingers remained around Germany's neck, her snake-like thumb began to wind around his chest, encompassing it once, twice, three times before it stopped.

Then, to Kid's revulsion, it pierced the larger man's body.

"_Scheiße_," Germany muttered as his strength finally began to fail.

As the young reaper tried to prise himself free, the slimy tentacle pulled out a glowing blue orb with a small flame-like protrusion on the top.

Germany's eyelids slid closed.

"NO!"

Kid had never felt so helpless. He could only stand and struggle against the tentacles restraining his arms and legs, watching in horror as Atlantis tossed Germany's lifeless body aside as though he were a ragdoll, and began to raise his softly glowing soul towards her lips.

Elsewhere in the building, there was an explosion.

* * *

***Lie Mode Engage* Atlantis was in no way influenced by Lust or any of the homunculi from FMA, nor was her appearance inspired by the Atlanteans from a certain Disney movie which should have been acclaimed by critics everywhere but instead has been pretty much forgotten by everybody.**

***Lie Mode Disengage* Yes, Germany is dead. Feel free to cry your eyes out.**

**Anmeldelser er velkomne.**


	15. Italy the Courageous

Italy's feet were a blur beneath his body as he ran, lost in a world of anger and confusion. He had been correct in surmising that there was something unseen beyond the stone arch, but could never have guessed that it would be a whole _castle_. And where were prisoners always held in a castle?

Exactly. The dungeons.

So he was heading in a downwards direction, searching for a place where he might find Germany or Kid.

Sometimes, a tall and thin man with no face and tentacles coming out of his back would step out and try to bar his path. He would just shoot them in the face and blow their heads to pieces just for having the _balls_ to try to get in his way. And yes, it made a mess. Some of it even splattered onto his clothes. But he didn't notice. He was in a haze. A trance. Half the time he didn't even know what he was doing.

He was vaguely aware of somebody calling his name, but he could barely hear them over the sound of his own fury, pounding into his head like a mallet.

"Italy!"

There it was again. It was a familiar, feminine voice: the kind you think you may have heard in a dream somewhere, a long time ago, or a memory which is so old that it has almost completely faded from your mind and all that you remember is a rushed blur, and even that will soon be lost to the mists of time.

Another tall creature stepped out and tried to prevent him from going any further. Italy raised his guns to its head (where did he get them from again?) and fired, leaving a huge stain of red on the wall and a speck or two on his hands and face. He didn't even blink. Not even as it screeched something which sounded like "I'm sorry, Lady Atlantis!"

"Italy, stop what you're doing!"

Maybe it was some pretty girl he had flirted with a few years ago. They were all the same, those girls. They thought he was cute enough when he was flirting with them, but when he asked them out on a date they always said that they weren't attracted to him in that way, or they would pat him on the head and call him adorable, never taking him seriously. All his life, it seemed that nobody had ever taken him seriously. Not even once.

Except for Germany. Germany always took Italy seriously. But Germany took _everything_ seriously and never left anything out. Not even when they played football. But Italy knew that if he found him again, he would probably be able to convince Germany to lighten up a little and have some real fun for once.

'If he's hurt,' he thought as he ran, 'if anybody's done any more damage to Germany, I am going to kill them. No questions asked. I will KILL THEM.'

"ITALY! STOP!"

Wait. Liz?

He skidded to a standstill.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"You need to stop and take a breather!" cried Liz. "Your soul is getting worn out and if you don't let it get some rest, there's every chance that you could _die_ down here! Or do you WANT that to happen, you idiot?"

Wow. Had he really been that out of it?

Breathing as deeply as he could, Italy slumped against the nearest wall, careful not to hit the door and get impaled on the massive locks, and slid down to the cold ground. His forehead was cold with sweat, and he wiped it on the hem of his T-shirt (which was blue and displayed the amusing slogan 'Italians Do It Better' but was now splattered with red).

He pulled his sweat soaked hair out of his eyes and set the pistols on his lap.

"Ve~ being a hero is a lot more intense than I thought it would be," he said with a smile. "America makes it look so easy."

"Forget that for a moment," said Liz in a concerned, almost sisterly tone. "You need to give your wavelength a chance to settle down and relax. Keep shooting like you have been and it'll take a pretty nasty toll on your soul. Kid and Patty and I aren't really affected because we're weapons too and Kid's a Grim Reaper, but even if you're a country as a person, you still have the body and soul of a human. Besides which, you were kinda zoning out back there."

"Hey sis, don't you think he kinda looked like a zombie?" asked Patty. "It's probably 'coz he's got blood on him and he looks really tired, but I'm afraid he's gonna try to eat my brains."

Italy examined his shirt and noted, with disdain, the splatters of red.

"Ve~ I didn't even notice," he said. "Guess I kinda zoned out, huh?"

"At least you haven't completely shut down this time," said Liz. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Don't worry," said Italy reassuringly, "I'm fine. Ve~ just a bit out of breath."

"I'm not surprised," said Patty. "Italy, you were running like you were in the Olympics! You must've had a lot of practice, huh?"

Italy couldn't help but laugh. It was true. In his lifetime, the one thing he had done more than anything else – drawing, training, even making pasta – was running. The only difference was that in those cases, he had always been running away from something which was going to hurt him. This time, he was running towards it. He had no idea what was going on or what he was letting himself in for, and quite frankly, he didn't really want to know.

He didn't want to know what or who had hurt Germany and Kid. Just that he would be able to see them both again, safe and sound. Germany in particular. For some reason, the strong blonde nation would only properly smile if he was close to Italy.

"Hey, is there somebody out there?"

Italy froze.

The voice had come from the other side of the door he was sitting next to, and it sounded ungodly familiar.

"Who was that?" asked Liz.

"He's gone all stiff again," said Patty. "Italy, is that somebody you know? Oh my gosh, it is, isn't it? Is it another nation? Who? Who is it?"

"Ssh!" Italy hissed.

He picked up the pistols and carefully pressed his ear against the flame-hardened wood, listening and waiting for whoever it was to speak again. He was uncertain, but had a rough idea of who it might be.

"Hello?" the voice said again, and its owner banged on the other side of the door. "Hey, could you let us outta here?"

"What the hell makes you think they'd want to do that, you fat-arsed yank?" demanded a second, much more moody voice. "For all you know, that could be one of the bastards who locked us up in here in the first place! I don't know when you decided to become an idiot, but I think you should fire whoever came up with the idea."

"Will you cut me some slack?" said the first voice indignantly. "Fuckin' A, when did _you_ turn into such a lameass?"

"Uh-oh!" Italy whispered. "It's America! England too! What am I supposed to do now, I didn't know they would be here! I didn't expect this! Liz, Patty, what do you think I should do?"

"How about letting them out?" Liz replied. "It's pretty obvious that they're prisoners as well, so just release them. Maybe they could help us find Kid. You never know, maybe they know what happened to Germany!"

"Ve~ I'm not so sure about that," said Italy. "All England ever does is shout at everybody and call them wankers or bastards and I don't even know what a wanker is, but by the way he says it I know it can't be a good thing, except for Big Brother France – he calls Big Brother France all sorts of names like 'frog' or 'cheese eating surrender monkey'. And America's stuck up and kinda stupid and he always eats junk food and smells like hamburgers even when he hasn't been eating them."

"I can hear you talking out there!" yelled America. "Let us out already, will ya? I've already been holed up with this limey jerk for longer than I can take!"

"In case you forgot, I've been here for longer than you have!" England shouted. "I'm just as sick of being locked up with you as you are being locked up with me. If there _is_ somebody out there, you can let us the hell out of here! Right now!"

"Ve~ I don't know about this!" Italy whispered.

"Don't worry," said Liz. "You've been doing great so far. Whatever they do can't be worse than anything those monsters back there would have done to you. You'll be fine. And if you're not, Patty and I will wail on 'em for you. How's that sound?"

Italy smiled. The mental image of England and America being attacked by a pair of teenage girls was, he had to admit, very amusing.

"Okay," he said.

He took a few steps back.

"GET BACK FROM THE DOOR!" he bellowed.

"Wait a minute, who's out there?" he heard America say. "Italy? Is that Italy? Italy _Veneziano_?"

"Italy Veneziano?" said Patty. "I never heard anyone call you that before. Why'd he call you that?"

"Ve~ that's my full name," said Italy. "They call me that 'coz I'm only the top half of Italy. My big brother Romano is the south. I thought I might've told you this, but maybe I forgot."

"Italy, you say?" England added, and through the door he said: "Excuse me, if that's you out there, Italy, do you think you could be a good chap and run along and find somebody who could let us out of this place?"

Okay. Now he just felt insulted.

"GODDAMN YOU BOTH GET AWAY FROM THE FUCKING DOOR RIGHT NOW!" he commanded.

There was a small yelp and the sound of two people stepping backwards.

"Liz, Patty, put everything you can into this shot, okay?" Italy requested.

"You got it."

"'Kay!"

He wasn't 100% sure what he was doing, but then again, he never had been and probably never would be. He raised the guns, took careful aim at the locks, and tightened his pinkie fingers on the triggers.

* * *

"NO!"

Kid had never felt so helpless. He could only stand and struggle against the tentacles restraining his arms and legs, watching in horror as Atlantis tossed Germany's lifeless body aside as though he were a ragdoll, and began to raise his softly glowing soul towards her lips.

Elsewhere in the building, there was an explosion.

* * *

Italy didn't open his eyes for a few moments, waiting for the dust to finish settling and the ringing in his ears to stop. It faded, to be replaced by the sounds of coughing and faint swearing.

"Bloody hell," swore an all-too-familiar voice. "You were only s'posed to blow the bloody door off!"

"Jeez, that was loud!" cried the second. "Surely that wasn't _holy crap it really IS Italy_."

Rubbing his head to drive out the headache, Italy stood up – wavering a bit as he tried to maintain his balance – and opened his eyes again.

His worst fears were confirmed twice. The first time was by the sight of the short, messy, straw-like hair, forest green eyes and obscenely large eyebrows. The second time was by the dusty-blonde hair, blue eyes behind thin glasses and the small crescent-shaped strand of hair that stood up all by itself. The owners of both looked worn out, half-starved and incredibly weatherworn, not to mention dirty and more than a little on the unshaven side, but otherwise they were fine. If a little confused and/or angry.

"Italy!" America cried joyfully, and he glomped Italy so hard that the poor man almost fell over. "Dude, it really IS you! I'm so glad you're okay! You are okay, aren't you?!"

"Ve~ hi, America!" Italy replied, happily but nervously. "I-I'm fine, really, but I won't be if you keep choking me like this-"

"America, will you get off him?" said England, pulling the larger, more excitable young man away from Italy. "Although I have to admit that it's good to see you're alright, Italy. Even if you're… good grief, what the hell have you been doing? Your arm is wrapped in bandages, you look completely exhausted and you're covered in blood!"

"Yeah, and what the hell are you wearing?" asked America. "'Italians Do It Better'? Yeah, ha-ha and all, but- are those _guns?!_ Where the hell did you get GUNS?"

"Oh! Oh yeah! Where are my manners?" said Italy, not really noticing how worked up the two newcomers were, and he held up both of the pistols in turn. "This is Liz and this is Patty! They're Demon Pistols and they live in Death City."

England and America just stared at him as though he had suddenly turned purple.

"Or is it the other way around?" asked Italy, looking down nervously at the guns. "I can't tell because you both look so similar, you're practically identical!"

"Uh… Iggy?" said America to his shorter companion. "Do you think he might be…?"

"Yes," said England, "the poor man's gone completely crackers."

"What?" cried Italy. "Ve~ No I haven't! Girls, do you think you could transform and show them?"

"Oh, so they transform?" asked America, who didn't really know whether he should play along with this or run away screaming. "What do they transform into, talking potatoes?"

"WHAT?!"

After a brief, bright flash of light, the tallest nation present suddenly found his collar in the grip of a rather angry looking teenage girl with long blonde hair and fierce blue eyes, who then proceeded to yell quite loudly in his face.

"Do I LOOK like a potato to you?" she demanded. "Well? Do I?"

"Good grief!" cried England. "Where the hell did she come from?!"

"You're the nutjob with the fairies, wouldn't you have some idea?" America demanded.

"Hehehe, silly!" Patty appeared, giggling, by Italy's side. "Oh my gosh, you should see the look on your face, it's so funny!"

She and Italy almost collapsed into each other, laughing their heads off. Poor England and America had no idea what was going on, and America was getting his face yelled in by an incensed Liz.

"ENOUGH OF THIS STUPID CRAP ALREADY!"

The shouting and laughing stopped as soon as England had finished yelling. Liz stepped away from America, face glowing bright red, and Italy's eyes took on a completely different sheen to the one they had possessed before. He had refocused on the task at hand.

"Thank you," he said. "Ve~ I think we got a bit side-tracked."

"It's no trouble," England replied.

"Ha, yeah," said America, "if there's one thing England's good at, it's shouting!"

He turned to the trio that had released them.

"So," he said, "is this like, a thing now? Where dangerous weapons can transform into pretty girls?"

"Not so bad yourself, handsome," Patty giggled, and America blushed furiously.

"_More to the point_," England said forcefully, knowing that if any flirting began it would never end. "Italy, despite what you may believe I am glad to know you're alright. Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"Ve~ not really, no," Italy admitted. "All I know is that these girls – Liz and Patty – their meister, the person who usually fights with them, was captured and we think he was brought here."

"Seriously?" said America in disbelief. "Why am I not surprised? I mean it's only dumbass Italy, after all."

Needless to say, he was rather surprised when Italy's fist slammed into his face at high speed, knocking him down to the dusty rubble-covered floor. He wiped away the small trickle of blood which had emerged from the corner of his mouth and stared in shock at the angry nation.

"Do NOT call me a dumbass again," he said solidly.

"Holy…" America slowly climbed to his feet. "How did…"

"How the hell did you do that?!" England demanded. "Since when could you punch people to the ground? Not just that, but America, of all people! And you- you've got your eyes open! I only just noticed: when did THAT happen?! S-Stop looking at me like that, it is quite unnerving-"

He fell silent, not wanting the flame in Italy's eyes to get any hotter.

"There is one other thing," said Italy. "One of those creatures, the big ones with no faces – I think they're all dead now _yes I killed them so stop looking at me like that_ – it said something before it died. I think it was 'I'm sorry, Lady Atlantis'."

"Lady Atlantis?" said America. "Who the hell is Lady Atlantis?"

"Ve~ I don't know," Italy replied, "but it can't be anyth- England, are you alright?"

By the looks of things, England was anything but alright. At the mention of the word 'Atlantis' he had frozen as though he had seen a ghost, pure terror making itself evident in his emerald eyes.

"This is bad," he muttered. "Very bad. This is very bad."

* * *

"You insolent little BRAT!" Atlantis screamed.

Kid dived out of the way just in time to avoid her fingers as they smashed the stony ground to pieces where his feet had just been. He landed some metres away, balancing on a single hand, if only because he didn't really have any more time to get his feet into the right position.

"You stupid little idiot," the pale woman insulted him. "I'll teach you to make a fool out of me!"

"No need," said Kid with a cocky, playful smile, "you've already done that for yourself!"

* * *

"The only reason I know about Atlantis is because of my mother telling me about her," England explained. "She existed long before our time came and died before then as well. Well, I may say that she died, but she really just disappeared. And for good reason."

"Then could ya tell us already?" America demanded.

"I'm getting around to it, you impatient git!" England shouted, but quickly regained his cool. "Anyway… she was a powerful empire. Long before the days of my mother or your grandfather, Italy, she presided over a huge landmass in the centre of the Atlantic Ocean _yes I know that's where the name comes from America please be quiet_. She was strong and her people were prosperous and happy."

"But why is she locking you guys up in here?" asked Patty.

"It probably has something to do with the thing I'm about to tell you if you'd only shut up!" England replied moodily. "As I was saying, while she was a dominant force in the early world, she was constantly afraid that sooner or later, another would rise and challenge her authority. So, as you can expect, when that started to happen – powerful nations such as Ancient Egypt, Persian Empire and Ancient Rome – she grew afraid. She was paranoid that one of them would usurp her and take her land for herself, so she committed the unthinkable."

Italy gulped.

"The unthinkable?" said Liz. "You mean she…"

England nodded.

"Nobody noticed at first," he said. "People go missing all the time, and this was the case even hundreds of years ago, when there was hardly anybody around. It started with one, a single person in the middle of the night, but a month later it was two, then three, and by the end of that year, up to ten people would go missing at a time. They would vanish and their corpses were never found. It was only when she started spreading her influence to the other continents that the nations realised…"

"She was eating the souls of her own _people?!"_ cried Italy.

"Yes- wait, how would you know that?" asked England. "How would you know anything about that? You're an idiot!"

At this latest insult to his intelligence, Italy raised a thoughtful finger to his chin.

"Ve~ I wonder how many other nations are locked up in this place," he said in mock speculation. "I'm betting that if I searched in the right place I could find Big Brother France and let him-"

"Why don't I just continue telling you about Atlantis and we can forget about the garlic-eating frog?" England asked, sweating in stress at the thought of having to face _him_. "After all, we don't want things to get completely out of hand, do we? So-so anyway, Atlantis began to devour the souls of her subjects, and it began to change her, physically and mentally. Her skin faded until it was almost white, her eyes became dark and empty, and she became even more worried as the empires around her grew more powerful. They left her alone, but she dreaded the day when they would attempt to assimilate her. Eventually, she singled out the most powerful one and made sure the one closest to him… ended his life."

"The most powerful?" said Italy. "Who was that?"

England just looked at him with a solemn expression.

"What?" Italy gasped. "You-you mean… Grandpa Rome…?"

Green eyes contorted in sympathy. He and America took a step back, anticipating an onslaught of violent, explosive tears which would soak them to the bone. The last thing they expected was for Italy to clench his fist and scowl in an admittedly terrifying manner.

"As if I didn't have enough reasons to kill her already," he growled.

Liz and Patty didn't move. Apparently they were used to this sort of thing.

"Dude, you're outta control!" cried America. "Can you stop freaking me out for like, ten seconds? I am having serious concerns for your sanity right now!"

"And besides that," England tailed, "the only reason Atlantis has been dormant until now is because her entire land mass was destroyed and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. I suppose with improving technology in the field of exploration, as well as the countless documentaries and that stupid Disney movie a few years ago-"

"Hey, don't you flip off Disney!" America said angrily. "Our Disney and Pixar could walk all over your crappy animation any day of the week! What's your best thing, Watership Down? Yeah, what an incredibly fantastic and uplifting movie THAT was!"

"That was an incredibly fantastic film and you know it!"

"Oh please, anyone who's seen Toy Story could tell you-"

"That we seriously need to be moving on?" Liz interjected. "Thank you, unless you two want to have a make-out session, that's a fantastic idea!"

The mention of a make-out session effectively shocked the two bickering nations into silence.

"Ve~ here's what we'll do," said Italy, and his tone of voice suggested that if anybody tried to disagree with him, they were going to die in a rather nasty way. "I'll take Liz and Patty and we'll go up and make sure Atlantis doesn't try to hurt anybody else. You guys see if there's any other nations locked up in this place, and if so, you let them out. Got it?"

There was a pause.

Perhaps the magnitude of what was happening needed time to sink in. _Italy_ was being the hero this time. _Italy_ was in command. _Italy_ was going to save everybody. Not America, not England, not even one of the really big and strong countries like Germany or Russia, but _ITALY_.

"I understand," said England eventually.

"Hey, no fair!" America complained. "I wanted to be the hero!"

"Ve~ are you the one who came all the way here from the other side of the ocean because you knew that if you didn't help the person who had taken care of you and kinda treated you like a little brother you would never be able to forgive yourself for the rest of your life?"

Again, a rather awkward pause.

"Well, I- okay, no," said America, "but this Atlantis babe can't be that bad, can she? What's the worse she could do?"

Italy reached for his left arm.

"How about _this?_" he demanded, and ripped the bandages away.

The US and the UK jumped back and gasped in horror when they saw the six huge gashes which all encompassed at least half of his arm, running along the limb right to his wrist and creating an almost stripe-like effect. They were only just beginning to heal, and the skin which had already closed was not the fleshy tan colour of his normal tone, but a deep pinkish-red, and would never revert to its previous shade for the rest of the (formerly) meek Italian's life. Liz turned her face away, not in approval of the decidedly gory sight, and placed a hand over her little sister's eyes to spare Patty the horror. England and America, however, came in for a closer look.

"Wow," England breathed. "And _she_ did this to you?"

Italy nodded.

"You know what that means, don't you?" asked America. "Wounds from another nation? If she was just a human they'd be gone quicker than you could say 'hamburger' but this is gonna leave scars like crazy. Bet it hurts, right?"

The young nation nodded again and added, "Like hell on earth."

England and America straightened up.

"Alright," said England, "since we probably don't have any other choice, we'll do what you say."

"Well I- I guess I- yeah, okay," America added reluctantly.

Italy smiled, but there was no joy in his eyes: there was only grim satisfaction behind a gleam of anger. It was chilling to see such an expression in eyes which, until then, had only borne innocent, slightly absent-minded happiness.

"Right," he said. "If I don't come back in two hours, get out of here without me."

"Don't jinx it!" cried Liz.

"Yeah, but people always say stuff like that," said Patty, "and they always end up fine!"

"Girls," said Italy in a commanding tone.

"Right."

"'Kay!"

England and America stepped back as Liz and Patty jumped into the air and, in twin flashes of pink light, became twin pistols resting comfortably in the palms of Italy's waiting hands. He about turned and started to run down the corridor.

"Yo Italy!"

He hesitated before turning a corner and looked back at his fellow nations, both of whom were smiling.

"Break a leg," said America, flashing him a thumbs up.

Italy returned it and ran out of sight.

The two former brothers were left alone in the corridor, heaps of rubble and dust their only other company.

"America," said England carefully, "did you see-"

"Yeah," America said, "I'm not as completely dumbass as you think. I guess Germany finally got the soldier he wanted."

* * *

"Italy," said Liz as the young man hurried, "are you completely sure you're okay? You looked kinda freaked out back there."

"I-I'm not sure," said Italy. "I know I didn't expect to run into those guys. And did you see them? They must've been in there for a week, at least! And if they looked that bad, what about Germany?"

"He's probably fine," said Patty. "From what you've said about him, I bet he could've punched his way outta there!"

Italy was about to reply, but saw something more than a little out of the ordinary in the corner of his eye and stopped in his running.

A trail of blood. In the centre of the corridor.

"Ve~ more blood," he muttered.

"You think maybe it'll lead to Kid?" asked Liz.

"Sis, did you see that wound he took?" said Patty. "What do you wanna bet he doesn't even look like Kid anymore and instead he just looks like an empty waterbed? All deflatey and stuff."

"Ugh, thanks for the mental images!" cried Liz.

Italy didn't say anything, choosing instead to focus on his running and being careful not to take a wrong turn or lose the trail. Maybe it had just been his imagination, but ever since he had left his house that fateful day a couple of weeks ago, it felt as though his life had been full of blood. Just one blood-filled event after another, blurring together into one, and these now unmasked wounds on his arm would stand as a permanent reminder of absolute hell.

He followed the trail through what felt like a maze of corridors, up staircases and around corners, all the while knowing that he was heading into a situation from which he may never return alive. He didn't know as much about Atlantis as he would have preferred, but enough to know that she was dangerous. He felt better knowing that Liz and Patty were by his sides though.

"Italy?"

"Ve~ what is it, Liz?"

"What're you gonna do if Germany's dead?"

He stopped running at the top of a staircase, noting that the blood trail had come to an end around here.

"I don't know," he confessed. "Ever since the First World War, he's always been there for me. It's gotten so I can't even imagine life without him. Every time I try I just- I draw a blank. Life without Germany isn't life at all."

Liz thought over what she could say without making this situation any worse than it already was.

"You're gonna have to think of something, aren't you?" she asked.

"Wow, sis," said Patty. "When did you get so morbid?"

"Hey, I'm not being morbid, okay?" said Liz. "I'm being realistic, which is more than I can say for you right now. Why've you gotta be such a space case?"

"I am who I am and nobody can change me!" Patty cheered happily.

There was a single door, right at the other end of the corridor. Luckily it was short, so Italy didn't have far to go. Italy walked over to it, placed his hand on the smooth, splinter-free wood…

…and stopped.

Something, some long forgotten part of his mind, was telling him that he should turn and speed away. That he should run for his life, never look back and leave whoever was in there to their own devices. Just like he had always done. It had always worked out for him in the past, hadn't it?

Because it meant he didn't get hurt.

Because it meant _he_ didn't get hurt.

But what about everybody else? What about all the times his allies had to cover for the mess he had made?

No. This was the resolution he had made on the plane ride over. This time, he was doing things for himself. He wasn't going to run away. He wasn't going to curl up and hide. And he WASN'T going to lose.

'Any last words?' he asked himself. 'Ve~ I really wish I had a better plan than this!'

That was it. No more indecision. No more hesitation.

He kicked the door in with a single foot and raised the guns, ready to fire.

The pale woman he presumed was Atlantis was standing over Kid, whom she had restrained with long, deep green tentacles which appeared to be her fingers. She straightened up, an eerie smile splitting her near-white face in two, in complete contrast to the teenage reaper whose face contorted with shock and horror.

But Italy barely even noticed. His eye was drawn to something else.

To the third person in the room.

To the limp, motionless body slumped against the wall.

He very nearly dropped the guns.

"Ger… ma… ny…?"

His voice was so quiet. It was barely more than a whisper. His hands – no, his entire body was shaking and trembling.

"ITALY!" Kid screamed in an attempt to break him out of his stupor. "ITALY, WHAT'RE YOU DOING HERE? RUN! RUN LIKE HELL!"

It didn't even look like Italy had heard him. His eyes flicked from the lifeless body of the man he depended on more than anything else to the woman who was smiling at him in a disgustingly innocent way.

"You…" he muttered.

Kid closed his eyes and turned away, preparing to be soaked in an uncontrolled eruption of tears.

"You _**BIIIIIIIITCH!**_"

…

It was safe to say that Kid didn't see that coming. Nor could he have foreseen Atlantis stumbling backward under a merciless blitzkrieg of flying bullets that could only have stemmed from a broken heart. He couldn't even shield himself.

"You _**EVIL HORRIBLE STUPID UGLY FUCKING BIIITCH!**_" Italy shrieked, so loudly that his throat felt as though it were on fire, tears slowly rolling down his face and dripping, unheeded, onto the stone floor. "_**IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO SHOW YOU MERCY, YOU DON'T KNOW **__**SHIT**__**! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! I'M GOING TO KIIILL YOOOOOU!**_"

He screamed and screamed until he was hoarse, and then screamed onward through the pain, never ending the onslaught of pellets that fired into the young woman's body. He didn't stop until the balled up end of one of her fingers slammed into his jaw and threw him backwards, and the guns flew out of his hands and clattered on the floor.

"Italy!" Kid cried, more out of shock than anything else, and forced himself into a kneeling position. "Liz, Patty, do something!"

As he struggled and tried to convince his partners to help, Atlantis brought in Italy for a closer viewing, holding his hands above his head and wrapping one of her extendable fingers around his neck for extra security.

"Now then," she said in a sickeningly calm voice, "which one might you be?"

"The one who only really wants to _kill you_," Italy growled.

"There's no need to be like that," said Atlantis, stroking his soft, boyish, blood-splattered face. "Come along now, who are you? There's something very familiar about you. About your eyes… by any chance are you related to Ancient Rome?"

"_Fuck you_, that's who I'm related to," Italy spat.

"Oh my, such language!" If she didn't stop that sultry tone soon… "And for such an adorable young man, as well. You are related to Rome, aren't you? You have his eyes. Are you his son? Grandson?"

"Shut up," Italy said forcefully. "Just shut up. You never cared about my grandfather! You're the whole reason he's dead!"

Atlantis looked taken aback, but this was more than likely just another ruse.

"Such a rude boy," she said, and wound one of her finger-tentacles around Italy's ankle before snaking it up his trouser leg. "I'm afraid I'll have to punish you."

There was a squelching noise and Italy winced as the needle-sharp point of her finger penetrated his leg. He gritted his teeth, groaning like he was holding up a building…

…and there was a stomach-churning crunch as the bones in his lower leg were almost entirely shattered.

"How is that?" she said. "Better? Oh don't worry: you're allowed to scream. Scream to your heart's content. It's not like your friends are going to help you – they appear to be a little distracted right now."

Italy didn't say anything. He simply glared at her innocent face with eyes blinded by rage, the desperate haggling of Kid and the Thompsons fading into the background as he wondered whether he could set her hair on fire if he stared hard enough.

"Not screaming?" said Atlantis, coiling her finger up his other leg. "Then I might just have to punish you some more. Won't that be _fun?_"

Another sickening squelch. Another nauseating crunch of near-total bone fracture. This time, Italy threw back his head and screamed his heart out in a combination of fury and agony, but his current circumstances meant that his anger was trickling away and the familiar disease of fear began to infect his mind.

Atlantis yawned mockingly.

"I'm bored now," she said as Italy's scream faded. "I think it would be much more fun to hurt you if you were dead. Who knows? I might even get your grandfather in here to watch."

She tightened the coil around the broken man's neck, causing him to gasp and wheeze.

"Oh wait," she said maliciously, "he's dead. Just like you're about to be. Me? I'm going to eat lots more souls and become the most powerful nation in the world. Any last words before you experience something I never will?"

Italy tried his best to look her in the eye.

"Death is… just another… part of life," he choked. "Don't… don't try to… fight it… just… just accept it… you'll feel… m-much better-"

"NO!" the kishin screamed in his reddening face. "I AM THE MIGHTY EMPIRE OF ATLANTIS! _I WILL NEVER DIE!_"

_**BANG.**_

A gunshot rang through the room. Atlantis yelped in shock and pain and withdrew her wounded finger from Kid. Meanwhile, Patty turned her sister's barrel upon the feminine kishin and shot repeatedly at the tendrils restraining Italy, not stopping until the poor, bleeding man was tossed in her direction. Atlantis retreated into the wreckage of her bed to deal with her injuries.

"Italy!" cried Kid again as the power trio helped him sit up. "Italy, are you alright?"

Italy's eyes were filling with tears.

"Kid," he muttered. "Big brother, I… Germany, he… I wanted to…"

"It's going to be okay."

Even though the reaper's hands were as cold as the grave, his grip on Italy's shoulders and the tone of his voice were definitely reassuring.

"But-but I-" Italy stammered.

"Listen to me, little brother," said Kid, smiling a bit on the last two words and noting how they felt strange and unfamiliar on his tongue. "It must have taken a considerable amount of courage for you to be able to come to this place, even if you had Liz and Patty with you. Just now, they told me how you defeated all of Atlantis' guards and released two of your friends from imprisonment. You need to know what an achievement it is just to have matched wavelengths with them. Are you listening to me, Italy Veneziano? There are many, many people in this world that could never have even brought themselves to board a plane, no less see or do any of the things you've done. You. Have. Done. _Brilliantly_."

Italy's heart leapt. Maybe he was right. Maybe everything was going to turn out okay!

"But my legs," he pointed out. "They're both broken. I can't do anything now."

"That's alright," said Kid as he stood up. "You've done fantastically for an amateur. Liz, Patty, let's show him how a true meister gets the job done."

"You got it!" shouted Patty gleefully, jubilant at being safely reunited with Kid.

"I've been waiting for this all day," Liz said with a smile, equally as happy.

In flashes of light, they were twin pistols resting where they belonged: in the safe, secure and undoubtedly rather cold grip of their meister.

Only…

Kid had noticed something. When Italy was shooting, he had held the guns upside down and had pulled the triggers with his pinkie fingers. So, in a rare (VERY rare) deviation from normality, he flipped the pistols over.

The grip was much more comfortable. It was easier to stabilize his hold on the weapons with his thumbs and guessed that gravity would take care of most of the recoil. All in all, Italy may have just been on to something. If it was an accident, it was a happy accident.

When Atlantis disengaged herself from the wreckage, wounds mostly healed save for grazed fingers and looking tremendously angry, it was to find Italy sitting back against the wall by the door, gripping his broken legs, and the adolescent death god pointing two pistols in her direction. His face was set with determination and overwhelming fortitude.

"Kishin Atlantis, your time is up!" he declared proudly. "As a Grim Reaper, I cannot allow scum like you to stain the face of this perfect world. You have now hurt two of my friends, and I will NOT let you touch a single person ever again! I will not show you mercy! I will NOT HOLD BACK!"

"_I'M TAKING YOUR SOUL!_"

* * *

**I guess it would make sense that if Italy was to use Liz and Patty, his shot would be that much more powerful than Kid's. I know Kid is a grim reaper, but if Italy is the personification of a country, wouldn't his soul wavelength be so much larger than Kid's? And for that matter, what if the personification meant that he also bore the condensed wavelengths of every single one of his citizens? How far would you go with this?**

**And I was going to mention everything else, but I was a derp and forgot what it was.**

**The next chapter will be the last. After that is the epilogue. But this isn't the end. Not by a long shot.**

**Đánh giá được hoan nghênh!**


	16. Germany of the Faint Smile

This was it.

The decider. All or nothing.

The teenage Grim Reaper, armed with guns, wits and a few kick-ass martial arts skills against the mutated empire who had all but lost her mind. The spectators? There was only one: a single young man, clutching his lower legs and hissing in pain, trying to remain conscious despite the odds, hoping against hope that the other man in the room would wake up soon and come to his aid.

"Are you joking?" asked Atlantis. "You're joking, right?"

Rather than replying, Kid prepared himself for battle, tightening his grip on the pistols and taking careful aim.

"Do I, perchance, look as if I'm joking?" he asked. "Liz, Patty, don't hold back!"

While slowly walking towards the kishin, he fired. Over and over again, aiming for her legs in the hopes of crippling her, which proved to be a bit of a mistake because it left her arms free to shoot her finger… tentacle… things at him. He nimbly jumped out of the way with a deft twirl that a ballerina would be proud of and fired again, this time aiming for her fingers, which was a little bit easier seeing as they were her most prominent features.

The bullets pelted into her deep green flesh and she screamed in agony, withdrew her fingers and glared at him furiously.

"Your fingers, while the greatest weapon you possess, are also coincidentally your weak point?" asked Kid in a snarky tone. "Don't you think that's just a little bit unoriginal and clichéd?"

"Ve~ she's from hundreds of years ago," Italy pointed out. "What do you expect?"

Kid snorted with laughter.

With what was supposed to be a terrifying scowl, Atlantis lunged at him with her other, lesser injured hand, but the teenage reaper jumped into the air and landed heavily on the deep green flesh, causing her to scream again as her fingers were crushed beneath his shoes. He shot up the whole length of those mottled tendrils, spraying blood all over the floor and noted, with grim approval, how she shrieked and screeched in pain throughout. She yanked her fingers out from under his feet and he landed after a rather show-offish backflip, and fear entered her eyes for the first time as she nursed her wounded hand.

"Damn you!" she growled, wandering dangerously into cliché territory with every passing second. "Damn you all to hell!"

"You have got to die," Kid sighed.

He levelled his aim, hoping to hit her head, neck or torso this time thanks to the fact that her hands were effectively out of action, and fired. She stumbled backwards and fell over, perhaps hoping that if she stopped moving Kid would stop shooting at her, but if that was the case, it didn't work. He kept shooting, not paying any heed to her twitches or yelps of pain.

Italy watched, wishing he could get up and run away, but that was out of the question with his shins so messed up. There was now blood soaking into his sock and pooling around his feet. And of course, because the wounds were inflicted by another nation rather than an ordinary human, they were much more painful than the inverse and would take a lot longer to heal. As with his arm, he would probably have scars for the rest of his life.

'I hope these bones can be fixed,' he thought through the clouds of pain. 'I don't know what I'll do if I'm never able to walk again.'

He watched Kid as he shot again and again at Atlantis, whose screams of anguish were escalating. She jerked and twisted violently with every pellet hitting her body, which by now must have looked more like Swiss cheese than anything else, but Italy didn't want to watch. He tried to cover his face, but somehow couldn't bring himself to look away. It was one of those things so horrible that he couldn't cover it up.

'I don't want to be here,' he thought. 'Wake up, Germany. I want to get out of here!'

Silence fell as Kid finally stopped firing.

"Is she dead?" asked Patty.

"Gotta be," said Liz. "I don't think even a freak show like her could survive being shot like that."

"I doubt that," Kid said. "We'll have to finish her off. Liz, Patty, you know what to do."

"Got it."

"On it, Kid!"

Even Italy, without the ability of soul perception, could see the translucent blue orb surrounding the young reaper's body as he levitated off the ground, eyes fit for mass murder.

"_LET'S GO! SOUL RESONANCE! Execution mode._"

Italy watched in wonder as the ground beneath Kid's feet experienced a sudden influx of wind, blowing away dust which hadn't really been there until just then. Crackles of black erupted from the teenager's upper arms before solidifying into six long spines which fizzled as purple lightning raced along and spurted off the tips. Liz and Patty changed shape completely, extending and expanding into a pair of cannons so large there was no way somebody as skinny and small as Kid should have been able to lift them without dislocating both his elbows, but he managed it. The orb vanished and he landed, squatting, on the ground and pointed both of the cannons at Atlantis.

"Resonance stable," Liz reported. "Black needle wavelength charging complete. Noise level at 2.0%. Feedback in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…"

"Firing now!" Patty chirped.

Twin balls of flame erupted from the ends of the cannons and barrelled towards the fallen Atlantis, then exploded in a mass of fire and rubble. Stones fell from the ceiling and walls and dust filled the air, and Italy did everything he could to cover his head and avoid being hit.

Kid straightened up as Liz and Patty returned to their normal forms.

"That should've done it," he muttered. "Not even someone like her could have survived that kind of shot at such close range."

"Ve~ but Kid-"

"Yes, Italy?" Kid turned to look at him.

Italy didn't say anything. He just pointed to a spot some six inches to the left of Kid's head. The young reaper looked around just in time to duck out of the way of three claws that carved through the air where his head had just been. If he hadn't been quick enough, he would surely have been decapitated. However, he wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the second set of claws as it sliced upward out of the dust cloud and hit him in the chest. It was a glancing blow, but enough to knock him to the ground and send Patty skittering across the floor.

"Shit!" he swore as a clawed foot pressed down on his bleeding chest.

Atlantis emerged from the settling dust, but she didn't look much like herself anymore. Her arms had swollen to the massive, unbalanced talons she had borne in her first attack upon Italy and Germany, and her foot had expanded in a similar fashion. Her face and body remained the same, but this only made them look shrunken and unnatural. When she smiled, it was an insane grin of razor-sharp fangs.

"Kid!" cried Liz. "Kid, do something! Shoot her!"

Her meister didn't move, save for a terrified tremble.

"I…" he choked, "I can't."

"WHAT? WHY NOT?!"

"I only have you, Liz," he explained. "My balance is off. I can't shoot. I can't do anything. I can't shoot her with only one weapon!"

"Oh God, WHY?!" shouted Liz. "Why do you choose _now_ to be an OCD nutcase?! If you don't do something now, you're going to die! You won't be able to heal yourself this time! You're going to DIE!"

"But… But the symmetry…" Kid said pleadingly. "It's off… I can't…"

"Snap out of it! KID!"

"I… I can't…"

He couldn't shoot. Not with only one gun. He couldn't. Just _couldn't_. The balance was off. He would never be able to forgive himself. The very thought of firing with only one gun was abhorrent. Unthinkable. Inconceivable. A notion he would never consider in a million years. How could he? How could he deny symmetry? How? He could only shoot if he could use two: that was why he had tracked down the Thompson sisters in the first place! Two identical weapons! Perfect balance! There wasn't any possible way for him to NOT shoot with both!

But… But if he didn't shoot now, he'd die…

He didn't care. He would rather have died than betray his precious, delightful, wonderful symmetry…

There was a gunshot.

Atlantis froze.

Italy didn't move. His hands didn't even tremble as he pulled Patty's trigger again, hitting Atlantis right between the eyes.

"Nations can only be killed by other nations," he said. "Isn't that right, you monster?"

One more bullet.

Done.

Like a demolished building, Atlantis started to keel over. As she fell, her body started to dissolve, the pieces falling into the air like sea spray, until all that remained was the glowing red orb of her soul.

After catching his breath, Kid got to his feet.

"Only killed by other nations?" he said. "That would explain how they were able to bring her back. I'm not sure if…"

A strange noise caught his attention. An odd shuffling noise. Somehow, he knew what it was before he turned around, but looked all the same just for confirmation of what he already feared.

Italy was on his stomach, dragging his body and wrecked legs across the ground, until he was lying in front of the still-motionless Germany. The big man was completely limp and lifeless, chest not rising and falling with the passage of breath, not even slightly twitching his fingers. Not even as Italy grabbed his arm and shook it in a futile attempt to wake him up.

"Germany?" he whispered. "Germany, wake up!"

The Thompson sisters retook human form and stood next to Kid. Neither of them said anything. There wasn't really anything they could say.

"Germany?" said Italy. "Can you hear me? Germany? Listen, can you hear me? It's Italy. Your best friend forever, Italy. Can you hear me? Can you wake up?"

He placed a shaking hand on Germany's stubbled cheek.

"That's me, Germany," he said. "Can you feel me? Can you feel my hand? Open your eyes if you can feel my hand. Open your eyes. It's easy, Germany. Please can you wake up? Please?"

He froze, staring at the fresh smear of red on the motionless man's cheek. When he slowly turned his shuddering palm towards his face, a small, quiet gasp of horror escaped his lips at the sight of the splatters of still-wet blood. He stared it for quite a while, watching as it dripped onto the floor.

"Oh my god," he muttered. "Oh my god, I-I can't believe I did this, I… I was just so angry, and I wanted to see him again so much, I… I let myself become a _monster_… what have I DONE?!"

His eyes flew back to Germany, who still had yet to make any movements.

"Germany," Italy breathed, "I'm so sorry, I-I wasn't quick enough, I failed… I failed you. I failed again. Tell me I failed, Germany. Tell me I'm gonna have to do better next time. Tell me you're gonna make sure I do better. Tell me something. Anything. Please. Just _speak_."

Kid somehow couldn't bring himself to look away. Liz bowed her head and Patty wiped tears from her eyes, but all the young reaper could bring himself to do was stand there, feeling useless.

"I missed you, Germany," Italy wept. "Say you missed me! Please!"

"Kid," said Liz, placing a hand on her meister's shoulder. "You should comfort him. Or if not that, then just do _something_."

Kid nodded, then slowly and silently approached the grief-stricken nation.

"Please wake up, Germany!" cried Italy. "You're the only thing that kept me going in Death City! The thought of seeing you again, I just- please! Don't leave me, Germany! I don't want you to leave me! Please! WAKE UP!"

He buried his face in the big man's neck, his body wracked with sob after heart-wrenching sob.

Kid gently rested his hand on the young man's shoulder.

Italy's eyes were heart-breaking. He had lost all semblance of hope or optimism, and the fire that had burned there only a few minutes ago had now been completely snuffed out. He looked around at Kid, searching for help in those bright two-toned orbs of gold.

"He won't wake up," he said. "Germany won't wake up. Kid… big brother… what do I do? I thought I'd be able to- I-I can't- how do I…"

"I'm sorry," said Kid. "I'm so sorry."

Italy was unable to speak any more. He felt as though there was nothing that could have been said or done to improve the situation in any possible way. His brain was in overload and on the verge of shutting down.

He threw his arms around Kid's chest and bawled his eyes out.

"NOO!" he screamed, tears soaking into the teenage reaper's torn shirt and jacket. "PLEASE! NO! _GERMANY! __**NOOOOOO!**_"

"I'm sorry," Kid repeated softly, rubbing the mentally broken man's back. "Believe me. I got to know him. We were locked in the same room. He was a good man. He didn't deserve to die."

It was painful to ignore the tears that were saturating his clothes, but he managed to sort out his priorities. It was difficult, but he did it. This time. For his little brother.

"You're… you're a Grim Reaper, aren't you?" Italy sobbed. "Surely… big brother… surely there has to be something you can do. There- there must be something! Can you- please can you bring back Germany?"

"I-"

"Please bring Germany back to life!"

"I can't," said Kid. "I may be a reaper, but even for a person of my lineage, there's no possible way to bring back the dead. Truly, I really am very sorry."

He would have liked to have cried. He would have liked to have sniffed and wiped tears from his eyes, and allowed his shoulders to shake uncontrollably with wretched sobs just as Italy's were, but something was stopping him. Perhaps, when he was sober at least, Kid just didn't have the emotional capacity.

Or maybe it was his knowledge of the truth.

"However," he said, "There is one thing I can do."

Italy looked up at him through tear-filled caramel eyes.

"It's a skill that every reaper possesses," said Kid. "At least, I can do it. My father can too. The ability to take souls in _konso_."

The young nation was puzzled.

"What's…" he began.

"I'm not entirely certain how it works," Kid explained, "and I'm not sure if I ever will be. I like to think of it as like a sub-space storage section for disembodied souls, but I only ever use it for kishin eggs. And even then, only when the girls and I collect an odd number and they can't be divided equally between them. There's nothing I like more than balance. This time, though…"

He held out his arm and something rushed out. Something round and glowing pale blue.

"…I thought I might make an exception."

Italy's eyes widened in wonder and hope.

"But-but how did-" he stuttered.

Kid smiled.

"It was easy, really," he said.

* * *

"_NO!"_

_Kid had never felt so helpless. He could only stand and struggle against the tentacles restraining his arms and legs, watching in horror as Atlantis tossed Germany's lifeless body aside as though he were a ragdoll, and began to raise his softly glowing soul towards her lips._

_Elsewhere in the building, there was an explosion._

_The distraction was momentary, but it was sufficient. The young reaper pulled himself free from his fleshy bonds and before the incensed empire could tell what was happening, he ran along a particularly thick tentacle (perhaps it was her thumb) until he reached her body and slammed his boot into her face, seizing Germany's soul as he fell to the ground._

"_Collect," he muttered, and it disappeared into _konso.

_Meanwhile, the kishin was picking herself up._

"_You insolent little BRAT!" Atlantis screamed._

* * *

"I can see that it's a very stern soul," said Kid, holding the small blue orb by the tail and examining it closely. "He enjoys nothing more than tidiness, shouting at disobedient people, giving orders and seeing people following those orders without any questions asked. Except, maybe, your company. He cares about you a lot, Italy. More than you could ever realize."

He gently rested it in Italy's waiting hands.

"It's so warm," the young man whispered. "It's like… like it's happy I'm here."

"I'll leave you to it," said Kid, standing up. "Anytime you wish to revive him, all you need to do is give his soul back. Remember: a sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body. And Germany has a very sound soul."

He walked back over to where his partners were standing, waiting patiently.

Italy looked at the soul, feeling the warmth and softness beneath his fingers. He had always known that Germany was actually super soft on the inside, but he never would have guessed in a million years that he would be correct. And that it would be literal.

He could see a small puncture wound in the middle of the big man's chest. That must have been where his soul was removed. He shuffled so that he was balanced on his knees – precarious and rather painful, but only temporary – and gently, using the tips of his fingers, he slowly pressed the glowing orb back into Germany's still inactive body.

Nothing happened.

So Italy did the only thing he could think of. He'd seen something similar working in the movies and it was the first thing that popped into his head.

Using the strength he reserved for those who called him a dumbass, he balled his hands into a single heavy fist and whacked Germany as hard as he could in the centre of his torso, hitting his heart with all his might.

Thrice.

On the third try Germany jerked forward, gasping heavily as air was forced out and then back into his empty lungs, and fell back coughing his heart back into action as oxygen re-entered his windpipe and bloodstream. After that, he was panting, and ever so slowly opened his sapphire eyes. Groggily, as though he were tired.

Perhaps, if he weren't a nation, it wouldn't have worked. But maybe his body just needed to be shocked in the right way – semi-immortality does have its perks.

Italy's eyes lit up as he smiled.

"I-Italy?" Germany breathed.

The smaller man nodded.

"I knew it," said Germany. "I am dead. God must have smiled upon me and I have been allowed into heaven."

"Wha? No!" cried Italy.

Germany looked him over, noticing the splatters of blood on his face and body, the wounds on his arm, the small scarlet pool around his legs, the streaks of mud on his cheeks which both vaguely resembled a V.

"Then this must be hell," he decided, "and I am to be tormented with your image for the rest of eternity. I should not have expected more."

"N-No, Germany," said Italy quietly. "I'm real. I'm really real, see?"

He softly stroked Germany's unshaven cheek, removing some of the excess blood that he had previously left behind, and then he shyly withdrew his hand, blushing heavily.

Germany gently touched his cheek.

"I'm alive?" he whispered, and sighed in relief.

"Germany," Italy said nervously, "listen, there's something I've been wanting to say to you. Something I-I should have said to you a long time ago."

The larger man eyed him curiously.

"And that is?" he asked.

After a cute little gulp, Italy held out his hand as if expecting it to be shaken.

"Hello," he said. "My name's Italy. Italy Veneziano."

Germany was, needless to say, a little confused.

"Italy," he said, "I already know who you are."

"_Si_," said Italy, "but we just shouted at each other, didn't we? That day with the tomato crate? We never actually said hello."

Germany searched for insincerity in those golden eyes, which were quickly tearing up, but failed to find any. He smiled.

"Hello," he said, taking Italy's hand, "my name is Germany."

For a moment, nothing moved. The two men sat/kneeled where they were, holding each other's hands, neither wanting to break the physical or ocular contact they were sharing, until one of them finally made a move.

"Italy?"

"Yes?"

"_Get over here._"

He pulled the smaller man closer and wrapped his arms around him in a tight, loving embrace which he never wanted to end. Italy rested his head on Germany's chest, unable to stem the fresh flow of tears from his eyes, and clutched the muscular man as tightly as he could without hurting him. Germany held him gently yet securely and stroked his soft, shining auburn hair, careful to avoid the awkward yet adorable curl, his other hand travelling as far as was acceptable down Italy's back. He looked up at Kid, who was standing watching between his partners, and mouthed a silent and increasingly tearful "thank you."

Kid nodded in acknowledgement.

"Girls," he said, "why did you come here?"

Liz and Patty stared at him.

"What kind of stupid-ass question is that?" asked the younger of the female duo. "You're our meister, we wouldn't just abandon you."

"Nevertheless," said Kid, "an idiot could tell that you resent me. You dislike me for removing you from a life of absolute freedom. You could have abandoned me to die in this place and gone back to being the most fearsome outlaws in the history of New York. So what in the world possessed you to convince Italy to be your meister and come here in what I can only guess is supposed to be a daring rescue?"

"Well, I-" Liz said. "Well, I guess I- don't get us wrong, Kid. You're still a complete OCD nutcase."

"But you're _our_ OCD nutcase," said Patty. "Anyone who tries to take you away from us is gonna feel our wrath. Feel it! Do you feel it, Kid? That's our wrath! You better feel it!"

"Okay, I feel it!" said Kid, holding up a hand to protect himself.

"Maybe we thought about it," Liz confessed. "I wondered what might happen if we went back to Brooklyn, but the truth is, there's nothing for us there. There never actually was and there never will be. We're your partners now."

"We love you, Kid!" said Patty, and the two sisters pulled him into a hug.

Kid put his arms around their shoulders.

"Okay," he said, "now let's do that again and make it symmetrical."

"I'm not even gonna tell you to shut up," said Liz, but didn't break the hug.

If anybody was to walk into the room at that moment, they would have been a little surprised. In the middle was a young boy with a messed up suit and stripes in his hair, being hugged by two teenage girls who were both a little taller than he was, and two grown men openly weeping into each other's bodies who were both much happier than they had been in a long, long time.

* * *

"So it _was_ you? You were really the so-called hero this time?"

"Ve~ you make that sound like a bad thing."

"I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. It's just a little unexpected."

"Well, I didn't really see it coming either. It just sorta happened."

"I can believe that, but I refuse to believe that it was of your own volition."

"Actually it was."

"What? Really?"

"_Si!_ Ve~ Liz and Patty did help to encourage me though. I say 'encourage' but really they just insulted me. You too."

"They did, did they?" Germany looked over at the two girls and said, "I do hope you allowed me some dignity."

"Well," said Liz while Patty started giggling, "That kinda depends on your definition of the word. If by 'dignity' you mean saying that Italy rubbed off on you and essentially turned you into a shrieking mimsy-"

She didn't have to continue. Germany's expression was a perfect display of his lack of appreciation.

"Ve~ they weren't being serious, Germany," Italy reassured him, ignoring how his hair curl had contorted into the shape of a heart, "they just wanted me to grow a pair and come and rescue you and Kid. Do you think I did a good job of it?"

Germany looked down at Kid, who nodded in agreement.

"_Ja_," he said, "you have done a very good job."

"He broke down the door," Kid pointed out. "He was screaming and swearing-"

"Screaming and swearing?" said Germany. "Romano, is that you pretending to be your little brother?"

Italy started laughing, and the man carrying him allowed himself a snigger at the very concept of _Romano_ charging in to the rescue. Kid smiled as well.

They were heading down into the depths of the building, hoping to release anybody else who was imprisoned down there. Kid was walking between Liz and Patty and Germany was carrying Italy piggy-back style. Italy had questioned whether it was painful, but the query was still up in the air. Unlike his legs, which dangled uselessly by Germany's sides, free of shoes because his laces had been used as makeshift tourniquets.

Italy gently traced his fingers over the wounds on Germany's back.

"Hey Germany?"

"What is it, Italy?"

"What was it you were trying to say to me? You said it in your own language, but I don't know what it means."

Ah. That.

Was he going to tell him? Was he going to swallow his pride, make himself look like the biggest _dummkopf_ on the planet, and confess his true feelings to Italy? Or was he going to submit to his inner coward?

Yes. To the latter.

"It was nothing," he said. "I may tell you later if time allows."

Italy understood that he wasn't ready yet. He could empathize with that. There were lots of things he wanted to tell people, but didn't want to for fear of looking like an idiot. In particular, there were three words he wanted to say more than anything. He had spent the whole plane ride – from the takeoff from McCarran Airport in Las Vegas to the landing in Stuttgart, and all through the refueling layover in JFK – planning how to say it and wondering if it would be possible, considering just who he was. It had all ejected itself from his head when he had seen Germany lying dead, but now it had returned in full force.

Let's just say that he finally understood all the urges to hug and kiss Germany and sleep in his bed whenever he had nightmares or got lonely. And why it was always Germany in particular.

"Yo dudes!"

"Oh _no_," Germany groaned. "Anyone but him!"

"Hey, don't make it sound like you're not happy to see me!" America complained as he approached. "And if you aren't then there's something seriously wrong with your head!"

"Will you just shut your mouth?" asked England. "There is a time and a place. This is neither."

He looked around at the motley crew.

"Hello chaps," he said. "Good to see you're all okay." Upon sighting the shortest person present, he politely held out his hand to shake and said, "You must be these ladies' wielder. You can call me England."

"I'm Death the Kid," said Death the Kid, "and if it's alright with you I would prefer not to shake your hand."

"What?" England launched into his default angry mode. "Are you saying there's something wrong with shaking hands? It's the polite way of greeting somebody and I would expect you to know that-"

"Why are you so short?" asked America. "You're what, fifteen? I thought you'd be way older and way taller!"

"Shaking hands is an asymmetrical motion and I don't know why I am so short!" Kid shouted angrily.

"Okay, okay, keep your pants on!" said America, and turned to the tallest newcomer. "You cool, German-dude? No offence, but you look kinda messed up. Like, _really_ messed up."

"_Nein_, I am fine," said Germany, and with a glance at Italy he added, "At least, I am now thanks to Italy."

Italy hugged him around the neck.

"Now listen," said England, suddenly becoming serious, "while you were gone, we did manage to find some of the others and release them, but it's a decision which I have come to regret most greatly."

"Why?" asked Liz. "Who did-?"

"_VENEZIANO!_"

The newcomer bore a frighteningly large resemblance to Italy, and whatever differences there were made themselves very clear. His hair was a much darker shade of brown, his curl sprouted from his forehead and off to the right, his eyes were paler and his skin tone was a little more tanned. He also appeared to be a bit taller and, quite clearly, a lot angrier. He walked- no, _charged_ down the corridor and stopped just short of colliding with Germany, but his gaze was fixed intently upon the younger Italian who was on the taller man's back.

"Where the hell on earth have you BEEN, Veneziano?" he demanded in an accent identical to Italy's. "No call, no text, no email, no letter, not even a goddamn postcard! You just drop off the face of the earth and disappear! I don't suppose you ever considered how worried I might be that my little brother could be hurt or kidnapped or dead or two of those or all three at once? What the hell is WRONG with you, you stupid bastard?"

He waited for an answer.

"Hello, Romano," was Italy's cheerful yet deadpan reply.

"Dude," America intervened, "chillax for a-"

"Stay out of this, you hamburger eating Yank!" shouted Romano. "_Chigi, _why don't you go make out with your little tea drinker?"

"Just what the hell are you insinuating, you stupid little wop?!" England demanded angrily, and America had to restrain him to prevent him from wringing Romano's infuriated neck. Kid buried his face in his hand and wished he could will himself away.

"GAH!" cried Romano, and pointed at Italy's lower half. "What the crapola happened to your legs?! And just look at your goddamn ARM! And you're completely covered in blood and there's mud on your face! Just what the hell have you been doing, you little _idiota_?! I'm guessing YOU had something to do with this, you potato-sucking bastard!"

"Your accusations are inaccurate and carry no evidence!" Germany stated through his receding temper.

"And who the fuck are YOU?!"

Kid leaned away from the finger which had been unceremoniously shoved in his face, and looked past it to see four more faces peering around the corner.

"Maybe this is bad time, da?"

"I fail to see where there could be _good_ time-aru."

"Oh, looks like little _Italie _got a little frisky!"

"I think it would be best to refrain from talking at this point."

The young reaper rolled his eyes.

"I can tell this is going to take a while," he said flatly.

* * *

**Do you know what your feelings are doing? 'Coz I sure as hell don't! I was cheering for Kid, then I was crying for Italy, then I was crying even _more_ for Germany, and then I was laughing for Romano... I think this is an adequate way of rounding off the story.**

**I've actually found that it gets way better if your listen to the FMA:B OST while reading it. Just imagine: the characters of Hetalia in the setting from Soul Eater with music from Fullmetal Alchemist. Wouldn't that be epic?!**

**It's my personal headcanon that nations can be harmed by humans, but only those of their kind are capabl of killing them. I guess it makes sense when you think about it. Also, those who have been reading this story since its inception may have noticed that I changed the description to say 'First in the SoulHeta series' because I hope to build a serviceable series out of it. However, what I really want more than anything else is to get a recommendation of TVTropes: partly because they don't have a Soul Eater/Hetalia crossover yet, but mostly because it would be awesome.**

**The epilogue shall be posted soon.**

**Matāmata sbāgata jānā'i!**


	17. The Eppiest of Logues

"Mail call!"

At Liz's call, Patty and Kid got up to collect their post for the day.

"For Patty: the latest edition of American Girl," said the elder sister, handing the shorter blonde her magazine, "For Kid: looks like a new briefing and a letter from some girl, and Teen People for me."

"You only get that magazine because of all the hot guys in it," Patty stated.

"I do not!"

"Do too, I saw you drooling over Channing Tatum the other day."

"What? No I wasn't!"

"And I found your secret stash of Harry/Zayn 1D fanfiction."

"_YOU SAID YOU WERE LOOKING FOR YOUR HAIRBRUSH!_"

Kid ignored the bickering sisters. He flicked through the briefing – a troublesome thief by the name of Lupin – and turned his attention instead to the plain white envelope which bore his name and address.

"A letter from some girl?" he said. "How do you know it's a girl?"

"I dunno," Liz replied while trying to hold back her maniacally laughing little sister. "It just says on the back that it's from Verona."

"Verona?" He dropped the briefing and ran too quickly into the kitchen to notice the untidy way the paper spread across the carpet, grabbed a knife from a drawer, sliced open the envelope and pulled out the contents.

'It's been a month,' he thought. 'A whole month since the Atlantis incident. Why has it taken so long for him to contact me?'

The contents of the envelope were sparse and simple: a folded letter and a photograph which looked as though it had been taken with a Polaroid. If so, the camera had been held at arm's length by Italy: it showed him, smiling brightly and winking at the lens despite his current position of lying in a hospital bed, tightly hugging an equally happy-looking Germany. The taller man was a lot healthier-looking. His hair was clean and slicked away from his face, which was clean and shaved, and he looked a lot less thin and bony than he did the last time Kid had seen him. Romano was just visible in the doorway, glowering disturbingly at the delighted pair (although Germany's smile looked a little forced – a little).

Kid smiled as well. He placed the photograph on the table and opened the letter, which went over two pages with rather small writing.

* * *

_Ciao, big brother! Sorry I had to keep you waiting for so long, but I've been in this hospital for like, ever. All of the doctors keep telling me that with my arm so messed up I shouldn't be doing something that means I need to use it like writing, and that I should have come to a hospital the moment I was hurt, which means I'm having to say what I want to write to Germany and he's writing it down for me! I was kinda worried that you'd think it was Germany writing to you instead of me, but he told me it was just a dictation and I didn't have to worry about it. I'm not sure what 'dictation' means and it sounds a little bit dirty, but it's Germany's idea so it must be okay!_

_So yeah, I've been in this hospital ever since we got out of the Black Forest. Luckily it's in Verona which means I'm back home again (yay!) but it got kinda boring after the first few days. They put these big heavy casts on my legs and hung them in the air – I think it's called 'traction' but I don't know – and they wrapped up my arm and put it in a sling. It doesn't hurt too much though, and I take my arm out of the sling when the doctors and nurses aren't looking. If I try to do it when one of them is around, I just get told off. Also, the food here kinda sucks. Not like it was made by England, but it still isn't very nice and they try to give me heaps and heaps of salad every time I want to eat something. It really sucks, but everyone else is being really kind to me and bringing me some food that doesn't taste like the floor! Romano says it's something to do with obligation, but Germany thinks they're just showing that they're grateful._

_My legs really hurt and the plaster's making me itch real bad. America let me have one of his buttscratchers so I can reach underneath, but every time I try to scratch the itches it makes my legs hurt even more (the doctors said something about all the bones in my shins being multiple fractured or something) and the worst part is that because I'm a nation, the morphine they give me doesn't have a very big effect on me. It's okay though, because Germany comes to visit me every day and when he does, the pain kinda goes away and I feel much happier. The doctors say that it'll be months before I'm able to walk again, but sometimes they say it'll be a miracle if I can ever stand properly without having to use crutches or a walking stick. But they also say that soon I won't have to lie down forever anymore because I can use a wheelchair. I'll have to get someone else to push me around until my arm is better, but if I just take it one day at a time I know I'll be walking again before I know it!_

_All of the nations are talking about what happened in the Black Forest. They've started calling it 'The Atlantis Incident' so that they don't always have to say 'What Happened in the Black Forest' and England says that there's gonna be a big World Conference with all the nations so that we can talk about it once I get out of hospital. He told me I need to be there because I know you and you know a lot about souls and kishins and stuff like that, so I'm the only one who can tell them what's going on. He looked kinda angry while he was saying this, almost as if he was jealous, but England always looks angry. Especially when I told him that his rock cakes tasted like actual rocks rather than cakes. Even the hospital food is better than England's rock cakes._

_Do you see the picture I included? I took it because I thought you might be worrying about me and whether or not I was okay or if Romano had been hitting me or if Germany and I were still best friends (he still does and we still are) so I decided to take a photo to show you! It's easier than just saying that I'm doing okay. I had to borrow Prussia's old camera because I don't have one of my own – I used to, but I dropped it – but didn't the picture turn out great? Germany looks so happy! And Romano's being kinda creepy back there, but I can't believe Germany would smile like that! Is it just me, or does he look younger? It's weird how he's blushing while I'm saying this, it's almost like he's embarrassed. I'm glad he comes in to visit me 'coz the only other entertainment I get is from the anime Japan lent me for the TV in my room. My favourite is the one with the short blonde guy with the metal arm who can do magic._

_Speaking of blonde, how are Liz and Patty? Are they doing alright? I hope they haven't tried to rob anybody in the street and they didn't get fired from their job. I bet they'd look really pretty in waitress outfits. You'd better prepare yourself 'coz America says he wants to go and see Death City and check it out, so if you see a guy with glasses, sticky-uppy hair, an old bomber jacket and a really loud voice, remember to stay away from him if you don't want to go crazy. I hope you're doing alright too, and that you haven't had any unfortunate incidents involving symmetry. I might send you a picture of my brother and me together because when we're next to each other we're almost symmetrical and you might like that, but Romano's kinda pissy and I don't think he'd agree to it._

_I'm not entirely sure what else I could tell you. There's not much left to tell you really apart from that I sometimes get visits from other nations who haven't come to bring me food. Germany brought his big brother Prussia with him a couple of days ago and he signed his name on my cast because apparently that's what you do when your friend has a cast. Mr Austria and Ms Hungary came to check up on me and Ms Hungary almost choked me to death when she was hugging me, but I guess she was just really worried because I hadn't contacted her for some time and I was all hurt and stuff. Mr Austria acted all stuffy and told me it was my own fault, but I could tell he cared too. Even Russia came by once, but that was only because he wanted me to join him 'coz he thought I'd got stronger when really I'm just the same old me._

_I think I'm gonna have to go now. The nurses are saying that visitor hours are over which means Germany's going to have to leave. I'm glad he doesn't have to stay here – he hasn't shown anybody the wounds on his back – but it kinda sucks because he still hasn't told me what he was trying to tell me when we met up in the woods. I'm okay with that because I know he'll tell me when he's ready._

_Your honorary little brother,_

_Italy Veneziano (dictated but not read)_

* * *

"Well, who's it from?" asked Liz, having ended her scuffle with her little sister.

"It's from Italy," said Kid.

"WHAT?!" cried Patty excitedly. "Is he doing okay? Is he in the hospital or something? Are the other nations being nice to him?"

"He's fine," Kid reported. "And yes, he is in hospital in traction because of his broken legs, but he says they're going to let him have a wheelchair until he can walk again. The other nations appear to be behaving quite pleasantly to him. I suppose they're grateful to him for saving them."

"That's great!" said Liz. "I picked up your briefing by the way, Mr Eager-to-Read."

She threw the file unceremoniously onto the table and departed to read her magazine.

"Can I have a look at the letter once you're done with it?" asked Patty. "I know it's for you and all, but I just want to know that Cutie is okay."

"Of course," said Kid. "I think it would be impolite to refuse."

"Yay, I love you!" Patty said happily, and she gave him a brief hug before running after her sister.

Kid looked down and read the postscripts.

_PS: Is there any chance you could come and visit me soon? I kinda miss you already and Romano's been acting all jealous lately. Plus I think some of the others might want to say thanks for your help. Either that or they just want to be able to say that they met a Grim Reaper. Prussia's talking about nudging you and saying he had a brush with Death, but I don't think he will because that's kinda lame and Prussia's awesome._

_PPS: I also have something I kinda wanna talk to you about. See, I've watched you fight. You're totally badass in every single way and I know that no matter what I do, no matter how much I train, I don't think I'll ever be as incredibly super-duper badass as you are already…_

Kid smiled when he read the conclusion.

…_but there's no harm in trying, is there?_

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**OCD NUTCASE OWNED IN TICKLE FIGHT**

Uploaded by Gunfreakofbrooklyn

15,594,093 views

**24,631 likes – 54 dislikes**

LOL my meister is such a dumbass! He totally let himself get tickled by a weirdo with an injured arm! Maybe this will make him lighten up (don't count on it :P).

**ThePastaMan:** OMG this IS hilarious!

**NoodlePanda: **_ ThePastaMan_ I fear for your sanity.

**ISpeakEngrish:** Is this what people do in Death City? Why must western culture be so baffling?! DX

**Cheeseyboy1066: **srsly?

**starsnstripes: **_ Cheeseyboy1066_ Srsly!

**earlofgrey45: **_ Cheeseyboy1066 _It's "seriously" you stupid frog.

**TheWurstSoldierEver: **This rather makes me wonder just what you were really doing in Death City.

**kolkolkolkolkol: **_ TheWurstSoldierEver_ Maybe he was trying to think up a better username for you ^J^

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_**TO BE CONTINUED…**_

…_maybe._

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**COMING SOON:**

_Draw a Circle: That's Your Soul_

People are bigger on the inside, metaphorically speaking. Unfortunately this means that there's more room for scars. A series of short one-shots exploring the aftermath to The Hetalian Job. Possible pairings. Second in the SoulHeta series.

**...**

_**ALSO COMING SOON:**_

_The Hetalian Class_

Nine months after the Atlantis incident, everyone involved has tried their best to move on, but following a violent schism, a stunning revelation could bring their chances of survival into question. Pairings/dark themes. Third in the SoulHeta series.

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**Well, that's it everybody. The end of the story. I want to thank absolutely everybody who stuck with this story until the very end: all the followers and favourites and reviews I've received over the past few months are what gave me the courage to keep going, even through the hardships of school life. Thank you for allowing me to entertain you!**

**And yes, as you can see, there are other stories in the works.**

**I felt that the aftermath would have taken too long to cover and it would have made the story drag on like no tomorrow, so I decided to split it off into a separate story. I also gave myself a limit: each chapter is approximately 1500 words long, except for 10 and 12, which are 4500 and 500 respectively. I did this because, as I said before, I didn't want it to just keep dragging on and on because it would make everybody bored and you wouldn't want to keep reading.**

**On a sadder note, my laptop is dead. It gave out on me while I was watching Ouran High School Host Club, and when I took it to the tech guy at school, I realised what had happened when he got out his taking-off cap. So I'm going to have to use something different if I want to keep creating these stories.**

**But don't be upset! There's still plenty to come!**

**And as always, as they shall ever be, reviews are most, _most_ welcome.**


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